Policy Memorandum: Ballistic Missile Defense in Europe

*The following is a student policy memo. Memo used open source material not cited here.

Image is of a ground-based missile interceptor at the Missile Defense Complex at Fort Greely, Alaska. Image courtesy of the U.S. Army http://www.flickr.com/photos/soldiersmediacenter/1276059371/

FROM: Jeremiah Granden SUBJECT: BALLISTIC MISSLE DEFENSE IN EUROPE

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The following is an assessment of the United States (U.S.) ballistic missile defense (BMD) program in Europe. It is the opinion of this analysis that while BMD capabilities are desirable to protect U.S. and allied interests from a potential missile attack emanating from the Middle East, this benefit is secondary to the harmful and potentially dangerous security situation it has created with Russia and the technological questions that surround the system itself. This assessment was derived by weighing multiple pros and cons using a theoretical framework that primarily consisted of the offense-defense balance, the security dilemma, deterrence theory, and nuclear pessimism. This memo recommends correcting the core problems with a specific series of reassurances made to Russia, more rigorous efforts to ensure the feasibility of BMD coupled with careful oversight of the missile defense establishment and defense industry contractors, and that the nuclear Road to Zero (RTZ) retains its policy emphasis. BACKGROUND In 1972 the U.S. and the Soviet Union entered into the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABMT). This treaty restricted the superpowers to fielding only two limited BMD systems, one to protect the national capitol and the other to protect a single intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launch site located at least 1,300 kilometers (km) away, thus preventing the superpowers from establishing a national BMD shield. This treaty was designed to halt the vertical arms racing that the superpowers had engaged in over the last decade by ensuring a mutual vulnerability to nuclear devastation. The U.S. and Soviet Union also signed an interim agreement that froze the number of offensive systems that each country could possess for a period of five years. These two agreements became known as the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty I (SALT I) accords. The provision that allowed for two BMD sites (in 1974 the agreement was amended to permit only one site) meant that missile defense research and development (R&D) continued, albeit at reduced levels. Furthermore, SALT I did not impose limitations on tactical missile defense (TMD) initiatives, such as the PATRIOT system that gained notoriety during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. In 1983, President Reagan sought to counter the awesome Soviet missile threat with a gr ound and space-based interception system known as the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), or Star Wars. The intent of this system was to defend the country against a full-scale Soviet attack rather than protect a limited number of critical sites. The legality of SDI (which proposed to use the sort of ground systems that the ABMT seemed to prohibit) was the subject of much debate, but the program was shelved until the nineties because of its technological unfeasibility and exorbitant price tag. By then the U.S.S.R had collapsed, and the impetus to establish BMD systems shifted from the threat of superpower conflict to the one posed by rogue regimes with ballistic missile capabilities.

In 1995, the Missile Defense Act was signed into law. It declared that U.S. policy was to (1) develop as soon as possible affordable and operationally effective theater missile defenses; (2) develop for deployment a multiple-site national missile defense system that is affordable and operationally effective against limited, accidental, and unauthorized ballistic missile attacks on the United States, and which can be augmented over time as the threat changes to provide a layered defense against limited, accidental, or unauthorized ballistic missile threats; (3) initiate negotiations with Russia as necessary to provide for the national defense systems envisioned by the act; and (4) consider, if those negotiations fail, the option of withdrawing from the ABM Treaty. The corresponding Clinton Administration strategy was a 3+3 one where the U.S. would develop BMD capabilities over a three-year period spanning from 1997 to 2000, make a decision in regard to deployment based on technological feasibility and prospective threat level, and, if BMD systems were found to be viable, field them between 2000 and 2003. In 2000, President Clinton opted not to deploy BMD, citing a lack of confidence in the technology. In 2002, President George W. Bush completed the twenty-year decline of the AMBT by withdrawing from the treaty altogether. Russia did little to oppose the move and European response was muted. Reaction became more heated with the Bush Administrations 2007 plan to install ten ground-based midcourse defense (GMD) interceptor missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic. Russia protested that this system, small and unproven though it may be, was destabilizing. There was also talk of building a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) system that might someday include Russia; and Moscow almost certainly felt edged out by the U.S. attempt to unilaterally establish BMD systems in two European countries. Beyond this, some assessments indicate that the Russians had little faith in the efficacy of BMD per-se and were more concerned by the increased American military presence in Eastern Europe necessitated by the installation of GMD systems. There was also a lingering worry that the interceptor missiles could easily be converted into offensive weapons. Furthermore, Bushs plan was controversial within the European Union (EU). The proposed installation sites were too far north to protect Romania, Turkey, Bulgaria, and Greece from an Iranian missile attack (the Iran threat is ostensibly the reason for the BMD deployment to begin with). Also, some countries protested that the U.S. was undermining the EU and NATO, as well as the dreamed of NATO BMD shield, by striking its own missile defense deals. By 2009, President Obama scrapped the Bush plan, replacing it with the European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPPA). At the 2010 Lisbon Summit, NATO endorsed the implementation of a BMD program that would protect all of Europe against the ballistic missile threat and welcomed the EPPA as the U.S.s contribution to this endeavor. The EPPA consists of four phases. The first phase began in 2011, with the second, third, and fourth projected to begin in 2015, 2018, and 2020 respectively. In phase one, the U.S. sought to address short- and medium-range missile threats by deploying Aegis ships equipped with SM-3 Block IA interceptors to the Mediterranean Sea as well as a land-based early warning radar system in Turkey. Phase two will entail the fielding of a land-based SM-3 GMD site with a more capable SM-3 interceptor (Block IB) in Romania. In phase three, coverage will expand to contend with medium- and intermediate-range missiles via a GMD site with a further improved SM-3 interceptor (Block IIA) in Poland. The fourth phase will consist of the deployment of SM3 Block IIB interceptors to decrease the threat that intermediate- to intercontinental-range missile

attacks from the Middle East pose to the U.S. It is also worth noting that according to the 2010 Ballistic Missile Defense Report the GMD sites already in place at Fort Greenly, Alaska and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California will protect U.S. territory from limited ICBM attacks emanating from the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK) and Iran for the foreseeable future. Moscow remains deeply alarmed by the current BMD plan. It is unconvinced that the proposed shield solely exists to put rogue Middle Eastern states in check and suspects that its own strategic nuclear arsenal is the true target; thus its strongest objection to EPPA is of phase four, which would shield against intermediate- to intercontinental- range weapons. As previously stated, it is concerned that the interceptor missiles can be converted to offensive nuclear weapons and remains wary of the prospect of a U.S. military presence near its borders. Several outstanding questions about the EPPA framework, such as whether or not Aegis BMD ships will regularly be deployed to the Norwegian Sea or Barents Sea, have further ratcheted up Russian anxieties. To alleviate the perceived threat Moscow has sought a joint Russian/U.S.-NATO BMD system as well as a binding legal agreement that states neither Russia nor NATO will target the other with its interceptor missiles. The U.S. and NATO have rebuked these offers because they would effectively grant Russia veto power over the shield. For its part, the U.S. has tried to include Russia into the greater BMD framework (for instance, a proposal to incorporate Russian early warning radar systems in Armavir and Azerbaijan into the BMD apparatus is being discussed) while insisting that any NATO system should remain separate from a Russian one. The NATO member countries are committed to the plan as it is, and continue to emphasize the importance of the U.S. delivering on its commitment to BMD in Europe. THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS Before the benefits and costs of BMD in Europe can be assessed and subsequent policy recommendations made it is important to lay bare the theoretical foundations that drive this assessment. Theory, despite banal accusations that it is not how things work in real life, provides the policymaker with invaluable analytic shortcuts that are necessary to assess a problem as complex as the missile defense one. There is simply too much empirical evidence to process, as well as too many unknowns, to derive a strategy just by looking at the facts. This assessment will primarily rely on the offense-defense balance, the security dilemma, deterrence theory, and nuclear pessimism. The offense-defense balance is a suitable lens with which to view the problem of BMD in Europe because of the technological nature of the issue. The offense/defense balance indicates that military capabilities are either offensive or defensive in nature, and that at any given point in time either offense of defense holds an advantage. For example, a world where strategic bomber planes were the decisive factor in military affairs would be offense-dominated because there is a greater incentive to use ones bombers rather than wait for an adversary to do it. In an offensedominated world, where offensive gains are cheap, there is constant pressure to strike first rather than wait and high levels of system volatility. Conversely, a world dominated by impregnable fortresses would be defense-dominated. Here it would be difficult to make offensive gains and thus less incentive to strike first. There would also be less volatility as the decision to take offensive action would be more costly. On the surface, BDM systems appear to be defensive

systems because they are designed to protect from something rather than strike out at something. However, Russia interprets these as offensive systems overall because they have limited confidence that system designed to allow a bullet hitting a bullet will work and are instead concerned with the convertibility of GMD sites into offensive launch sites as well as the presence of U.S. military infrastructure less than a thousand miles from Moscow. Because Russia is a natural resource rich country whose military has been in decline since the end of the Cold War it is wary of its neighbors in general. To compound this, the geographic buffer that western Soviet republics like Belarus as well as the Warsaw Pact countries created has been lost. Furthermore, Russias interpretation of the U.S. as a revisionist power determined to spread democracy and an established precedent of European aggression (as demonstrated by the Napoleonic and Nazi invasion) makes foreign offensive capacity even more threatening than it would be if the problem was rooted in the technological nature of individual systems and geostrategic considerations. Russias current military orientation has a deterrence-based, rather than strictly offensive or defensive, mindset. This is problematic because as the perceived offensive might of the U.S. and NATO grows Russia might feel pressure to convert a deterrent force into an offensive force and strike out of anxiety (granted, the potential for a Russian first strike against BMD capabilities is vanishingly small as the matter stands today). Russias strategic and tactical nuclear arsenal makes such a conversion into a hazardous prospect. For its part, the U.S. and NATO view BMD as a defensive capability and believe it will protect the region rather than drive up instability. Iran, who is ostensibly the target of the European BMD system, seem to be interpreting it as a defensive system but has publicly stated that it will target radar infrastructure in Turkey if the regime is threatened. There is also the security dilemma. The security dilemma holds that the anarchy of the international order means that a buildup of military capacity by one country or institution, even a benign one, creates an incentive for other countries to militarily build up as well because they dont have any guarantee that the other party will not someday turn its capacity against them. The security dilemma is clearly at work in regard to the BMD question. The official U.S. stance holds that this capacity is directed toward the ballistic missile capabilities of Iran. This is mostly, but not entirely, true. It is true because the U.S. has pursued BMD capabilities with varying levels of intensity since the forties. For much of this time BMD was largely focused on the Soviet threat, however, BMD retained its importance during the nineties and the early part of the millennium. During this time the central concern about Russia was its internal instability and the state of its nuclear arsenal; however, the Missile Defense Act was signed in 1995 when U.S./Russian relations were as good as they had been since World War II. In addition, the act specifically refers to limited, accidental, and unauthorized attacks, which indicates that this piece of U.S. policy did not even make an allowance for efforts to hedge against Russias considerable ballistic missile capabilities. Yet, it would be nave to think that the European BMD system bears no reference whatsoever to Russia. If it didnt, an agreement not to direct BM D capacity against Russia could easily be entered into. Europe has some reason to interpret Russia as a military and economic threat based on actions such as the intervention in Georgia in 2008 and its cutting off the flow of natural gas into the Ukraine in 2006, so Russia may well be correct in its interpretation of BMD as a tacit effort to check Moscow. Also, the Bush administrations proposed BMD installations in the Czech Republic and Poland would have been advantageous in the interception of Russian missiles targeting the U.S. while leaving southeastern Europe unprotected from Iranian attacks. Finally, Moscow has expressed concern that BMD capabilities

could qualitatively or quantitatively explode as a result of the European missile defense program, which drives up the security dilemma further still. For its part, Iran continues to develop its missile program without clear reference to BMD. Deterrence is a security strategy where the actions of ones current or potential opponents are controlled by the threat of punishment or by denying an opponent the capability to carry out a certain act or set of acts. For instance, nuclear retaliation is an example of deterrence by punishment whereas effective missile defense, which could dampen down the attractiveness of pursing ballistic missile capability overall, is deterrence by denial. The Russian security strategy is very reliant on deterrence by punishment. This is because it has a shrinking conventional military and an economy built around the rise and fall of oil and gas prices. These dual forces mean that Russia has less ability to consistently invest in the high overhead needed to sustain conventional military strength and instead needs to leverage low investment, high-return measures like its existing nuclear arsenal. While Prime Minister Putin recently promised to add more than 400 ICBMs, eight nuclear submarines, 600 advanced aircraft, 2,300 tanks, and an array of other hardware pieces to the Russian arsenal over the next ten years analysts suspect that the regime will be unable to accomplish this and as such will need to lean on its nuclear arsenal to ensure its security. This does not mean that nuclear force reductions are impossible, but rather that Russia will continue to rely on its nuclear deterrent rather than build up the kind of conventional force that could replace it, as the U.S. could conceivably do. Russia sees itself and its energy resources as vulnerable to outside aggression, believes that it is losing status on the world stage, is threatened by a demographic crisis and brain drain, and sees its sphere of influence shrinking with the incorporation of former Soviet republics into NATO as well as with potential losses in places like Syria. A missile defense shield that could render its strategic deterrent moot would present the regime with grave security challenges and Russia would have cause to interpret itself as powerless against the U.S. and Europe. As stated earlier, Russia has a limited amount of confidence in the technology; however, it still has some or it wouldnt tinker with its own BMD capabilities or express such concern with phase four of EPPA. A BMD shield wouldnt have to offer absolute security either; Russia is also concerned that the U.S. could convert hundreds of Tomahawk cruise missiles staged on its Ohio-class Trident submarines from nuclear to conventional weapons. The newer Tomahawk missiles are highly accurate and could conceivably destroy 70%-80% of Russias ICBM silos, leaving the BMD shield to eliminate the rest in the event of a Russian attack. It isnt likely that the U.S. and NATO believe that missile defense will give them a free hand to manage Russia with and the policy continues to focus on Iran, which is often treated as an irrational and undeterrable actor. Official statements and news reports out of Tehran tend to call BMDs effectiveness into question, which may indicate either an effort to undermine the BMD system for domestic ends or a limited deterrence by denial value for the system itself. Nuclear pessimism, the argument that holds that a world with fewer nuclear weapons is more desirable than a world with more, is also a significant theoretical framework for this argument. Here BMD offers a high degree of ambiguity. On the one hand a missile defense shield could remove many of the incentives to either proliferate or maintain a nuclear arsenal. On the other, BMD capabilities could be treated as something to overcome with more and better strategic nuclear weapons or an investment in tactical nuclear weapons. Tactical nuclear weapons are those nuclear weapons designed for battlefield use and include armaments like gravity bombs.

Nuclear pessimism holds that both of the outcomes are undesirable, as any proliferation increases the chances for a nuclear conflict. Two important theoretical frameworks that have not been used as a primary means to frame this problem are domestic political considerations and constructivism. These frameworks hold worthwhile insights but their use is limited here. An analysis of domestic politics may serve to explain why Russia is kept separate from Europes BMD strategy or why Iran may be pursuing ICBM capabilities at all, but the question here is how to handle a technological problem and the domestic level of analysis runs the risk of producing too much in the way of circumstantial detail and not enough on the structural side. Constructivism, to include psychological and cultural considerations, holds some weight in understanding leadership behavior or gauging why the country actors feel like they do in regard to the BMD question, but once again the problem may be too structural for constructivism to offer a solution. Both of these theoretical frameworks have a place in the analysis, however, and domestic politics in particular will factor into the discussion of the bureaucratic, commercial, and political entities involved in the U.S. missile defense endeavor. BENEFITS AND COSTS OF BMD IN EUROPE In order to establish whether the current BMD strategy is in U.S. interests the benefits and costs need to be ranked and measured against each other. This ranking metric considers both potential and actual benefits and costs. For instance, the potential for a system that completely shields the U.S. from any kind of ballistic missile attack would be considered a significant benefit, even though BMD is unable to provide this at its present stage of development. The systems current ability to provide some level of protection from Iranian attacks in its present-day and immediately projected form is also a benefit. Both of these benefits will be measured against each other and holistically ranked. The pros and cons of BMD will be assessed primarily through the framework of the offense/defense balance, the security dilemma, deterrence theory, and nuclear pessimism with some emphasis given to domestic political considerations and concerns that fall along constructivist lines. The benefits of the BMD system in Europe are ranked as follows: 1) the system may lay the groundwork in eventually providing the the U.S. and its European allies with comprehensive protection against both limited and large-scale ballistic missile attacks and thus drive down the importance of ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons, 2) the system reinforces the U.S.s position as guarantor of NATO and thus strengthens the U.S./NATO alliance and 3) the system has the potential to protect the U.S. and Europe against limited, accidental, and unauthorized ballistic missile attacks emanating from the Middle East. The costs of the BMD system in Europe are 1) the system creates a damaging and potential dangerous security situation in regard to Russia, 2) the system is unproven if not technologically unsound, and 3) the systems high political and fiscal costs are out of proportion to the threat it claims to offer protection against. These points will first be addressed individually then weighed as a whole. The promise of a defense system that could provide absolute or near absolute protection from both small- and large- scale ballistic missile attacks is a captivating one. Such a system could tilt the offense-defense balance solidly to the defensive side and stabilize the international system.

To the extent that the U.S. remains a status quo power in the international system such a state of affairs would be highly desirable. Furthermore, the U.S. does not want to be outpaced by the technology to where it either fails to establish missile defense capabilities at all or establishes them after, say, the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). If the PRC established a comprehensive missile shield before the U.S. does it could compromise U.S. and allied interests in the Pacific. This is because the PRC could, in theory, make a series of territorial claims that the U.S. would have a diminished ability to counter. For reasons ranging from the power asymmetry between the U.S. and the PRC and the current state of missile defense capabilities, such a turn of events is not likely to occur for decades, if ever, but it is important to remember that there is a degree of arms racing inherent in BMD (coincidentally, BMD capacity could, and perhaps should, focus on Asia rather than Europe). The U.S., as the prime mover in the establishment of BMD, could use the shield as a means to maintain its influence in Europe and throughout the world. Also, there may be less incentive for states to pursue strategic nuclear weapons or current nuclear states to retain them if a working missile defense shield eliminated their effectiveness. It would provide an extremely effective form of deterrence by denial, as political will is not necessary to shoot down a ballistic missile mid-flight. This promise of security from ballistic missile attacks is also of considerable interest to Europe. From a capabilities perspective NATO countries in southern Europe face a current ballistic missile threat from Iran. There has been political investment in the matter since at least 2001 when NATO launched feasibility studies on BMD. Lingering questions concerning Iranian nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities have driven the European security dilemma and have crafted the prospects for a NATO BMD system from a vague plan into a military reality. U.S. cooperation has been crucial, and this cooperation helps to sustain the U.S.s strategic position in Europe in a post-Cold War world. If Europe didnt face ongoing security threats NATO would run the risk of losing its relevance and the U.S., as the guarantor of the alliance, could find its influence on the continent slipping. Dual concern with the physical security of Europe and the U.S.s long term prospects to remain a player there provide incentive to carry out EPPA or something like it. It may be odd to rank the stated reason for missile defense last in the list of pros; however the reasons for doing this will be clearer when the questions concerning BMDs technical efficacy and the nature of the Iranian missile threat are explored. For now it is sufficient to say that fielding a system that can block limited, accidental, and unauthorized missile fire from Iran is desirable, in particular if Iran acquires nuclear weapons. The nuclear pessimist perspective holds that there is always the possibility of something like a crisis-driven or accidental weapon fire, especially if the number is driven up by proliferation, and a BMD system would be a godsend if such an event ever took place. The most important argument against BMD is that it creates a potentially dangerous security situation with Russia. As stated earlier, this situation is driven by the offense-defense balance, the security dilemma, Russias reliance on its nuclear deterrent, and the potential for a BMD system to necessitate a larger or reoriented Russian nuclear arsenal which would drive down overall security. While the Obama administration has pursued a strategy designed to minimize the threat, missile defense remains a highly contentious issue that drives Russian security policy

to see the U.S. as a threat that necessitates hedging against and thus accelerates the potential for conflict. While scientific progress is almost certainly going to improve BMD capabilities in coming years the system remains unproven, if not technologically unsound. Often, BMD capabilities have been oversold by political and bureaucratic proponents, including a prior head of the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) who claimed in 2008 that we could now hit a bullet with a bullet. The reality behind the statement was that a U.S. Navy carried out a fleet exercise that year where it scored one hit and one miss with an Aegis missile, while the proposed two-stage interceptors that the Bush administration wanted to install in Europe regularly failed heavily-scripted flight tests and hadnt been test-fired at all. In fact, the GMD system has been effective in only eight of fifteen tests since 1999. The tactic of using promising facets of the BMD program as proof of success for the program as a whole has been a frequent strategy of the MDA, although the current director has taken a more cautious approach. However, significant incentives exist for both the MDA and private contractors to design tests that will allow BMD systems to succeed. According to the Pentagons director of operational testing the current BMD test program is success oriented and doesnt allow time for repeat tests in the event of failure, meaning that comprehensive quantitative assessments of the system are years away. Also, BMD testing doesnt incorporate simple countermeasures like balloon decoys, which would be well within the capabilities of both Iran and the DPRK. The rush to implement an unproven BMD system may represent both a misuse of billions of dollars and the creation of a false sense of security for Europe. This can lead to two interconnected security problems. First, that Russian and Iranian anxieties can be driven up by an ineffectual BMD shield and overcompensate in terms of expanded ballistic missile capacity. Second, that the testing shortfalls of the system will cause both the target and the continent it was designed to protect not to believe in it, thus limiting its deterrence by denial potential as well as opening the door to further questions about the systems true intent. The remaining con for European BMD is that the specified threat may not warrant its high political and monetary costs. Irans most significant ballistic missile to date, the Shabab-3, has a range of eight hundred miles which would allow it to strike Turkey and possibly the southeastern corner of Europe. The regime does not have missiles that could threaten the United Kingdom or the rest of continental Europe, nor is it anywhere close to having ICBMs capable of targeting the U.S. The ultimate fear is that Irans ongoing nuclear program has a military component and it could someday terrorize Europe with its capacity, although it remains unproven that Iran would use any prospective nuclear arsenal in this manner rather than as a simple deterrent or a way of garnering international prestige. Nor is it likely that Iran would see a clear gain in firing a nuclear-tipped ballistic missile against Europe, unless it was trying to forestall regime collapse. Firing a salvo of conventional missiles against a NATO country or countries is not likely to help Iran out in a crisis situation other than a war for survival, as Iran would only make limited gains with anything less than an extensive attack and quickly find itself outmatched by the alliance. There is the possibility of an accidental launch, and in this respect a BMD shield would be a godsend as long as the technology was up to the task. Iran has to be treated as a rational actor; even the madness of the human wave strategy it relied on throughout the Iran-Iraq War was driven by rational considerations. That said, unexpected things can happen when a country is lost in the fog of war so absolute rationality cannot be counted on in all circumstance. Lastly, Iran

has not been particularly reckless or aggressive with the military capacity it possesses. Overall, Iran poses a low yet plausible ballistic missile threat to Europe. The question becomes whether low yet plausible justifies the monetary expenditures and the potential for an ongoing security crisis with Russia, not to mention the fact that the BMD shield may represent a roadblock on the RTZ by driving up tactical nuclear capacity and discouraging Russian, if not Iranian, cooperation in general. This analysis ranks the pros and cons described above in the following order, from most to least significant: 1) the system is creating a damaging and potential dangerous security situation in regard to Russia, 2) the system is unproven if not technologically unsound, 3) the system may lay the groundwork in eventually providing the U.S. and its European allies with comprehensive protection against both limited and large-scale ballistic missile attacks and thus drive down the importance of nuclear weapons, 4) the system reinforces the U.S.s position as guarantor of NATO and thus strengthens the U.S./NATO alliance, 5) the system has the potential to protect the U.S. and Europe against limited, accidental, and unauthorized ballistic missile attacks emanating from the Middle East, and 6) the systems high political and fiscal costs are out of proportion to the threat it claims to offer protection against. Russias security dilemma in regard to the scope and purpose of Europes BMD system has surfaced as the key driver of the problem, with substantive questions related to the offense-defense balance and Russias deterrence posture being raised. All of this has an impact on the RTZ, which nuclear pessimism holds as being desirable and the author considers a vital policy goal. The general conclusion to be drawn is that while there are benefits in progressing toward a comprehensive missile shield in Europe and beyond, the situation with Russia and lingering questions concerning BMD capabilities mean that the current missile defense strategy in Europe needs to be modified. ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS If the above elements were arranged in a different manner, or if different elements were included, the resultant policy recommendations would change. While not all alternative configurations will be assessed here; two primary ones that would entail either proceeding with missile defense without offering reassurances or scrapping the BMD program in Europe will be. A decision to treat the establishment of a European BMD shield as more important than the fallout it creates and any technical considerations that might undermine its effectiveness comes close to representing Bush administration policy. Such a policy tends to treat Iranian ballistic missiles as a grave security threat that needs to be hedged against by any and all available means. It also tacitly treats Russian capabilities as a threat. Furthermore, it may represent an effort to foist a rather conservative security posture on the American public which infers that the U.S. can use technology to excuse itself from diplomatic engagement and that outside influence on U.S. interests can be successfully eliminated by weapons systems. The advantages of a European BMD system constructed under this strategy is that it can be built quickly as long as the political costs are tolerable and could be used to contain the Russian ballistic missile threat as well as the Iranian one. Downsides such as the potential for destabilization and the risk of fielding a costly yet ineffective system have been discussed above.

The decision to scrap the European BMD program could be representative of either a dovish or scientifically skeptical position. This position would hold that the systems threat to European security or the weakness of the technology precludes its deployment. It could also hold that the Iranian threat has been exaggerated and/or the conservative vision of security through perfect defense is an illusion. This assessment resembles the one presented here. However, the author believes that BMD deserves some place in the U.S. security posture and that prior commitments to our European allies should be honored, even if there are diplomatic costs and technological shortcomings limit its effectiveness. POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS The authors policy recommendations will deal with the Russian security concerns and technological feasibility, with the other pros and cons listed above intersecting these. The policy recommendations related to Russia are primarily derived from American Conventional Superiority: A Balancing Act, a chapter written by Dennis Gormley in the 2011 book Getting to Zero: The Path to Nuclear Disarmament. The key to getting past the Russian security dilemma is to create consensus and resolve the problem of imperfect information. To that end, the U.S. and Russia should achieve consensus on the missile threat that Iran poses. The BMD shield focuses on ballistic missile capabilities that Russia claims Iran will not have for the next twenty years. A neglected threat is the one posed by land-based cruise missiles to the periphery of Europe, a capacity Iran has expanded for the last several years. Joint efforts to address the cruise missile problem may open up an avenue of cooperation less threatening than one that focuses solely on ballistic missiles. Furthermore, it is unrealistic to simply focus on one facet of the missile threat. Work on this issue should occasion further opportunities to mutually define the Iranian threat and clarify Russias position in relation the BMD shield. Also, the Cooperative Airspace Initiative (CAI), whose goal is to achieve a system of air traffic information exchange along the borders of Russia and NATO member countries, could be used as a starting point to create a cooperative framework for expanding cruise missile warning and defense capabilities. This would be a tangible way to get Russia involved in the missile defense framework and promote a reinterpretation of the strategy. Establishment of the Joint Data Exchange Center in Moscow, which would provide early warning on missile launches, should be pushed; as should the incorporation of Russian lowfrequency warning radars in Armavir and Azerbaijan. Arms control agreements that would prohibit the placement of interceptors in space would offer welcome reassurance, as would a treaty agreement placing limits on midcourse and upper-tier interceptors. Furthermore, Russia should be given an almost permanent presence at GMD facilities in Romania and Poland, which would entail aperiodic visits from Russian observers and cameras for around-the-clock surveillance. Doing this will do little to improve some of the open questions as to whether or not Russia poses a threat to the U.S. and Europe, nor will it change Russias long-term reliance on strategic nuclear weapons. However, these measures would not only reassure Russia about the scope and intent of the BMD shield but improve Europes ability to protect itself from ballistic missile attacks. The soundness problem is a complex one. The interests of politicians, the MDA, and military contractors have led to the fielding of a questionable military product that our European allies

have committed themselves to. It will prove politically difficult to back out of EPPA or delay its timetable, so a new phase four that entails a comprehensive effort to ensure that already deployed systems are up to speed should be put into effect, with the previous phase four pushed back to become phase five. This may be politically unpopular as it will delay the U.S.s ability to protect itself from Middle Eastern ICBM attacks, but for too long the BMD process has been hijacked by unrealistic timetables driven by overly rosy assessments. This new phase is added between phases four and five in order to honor commitments made to Romania, Poland, and Europe as a whole. By most forecasts, the Iranian ICBM threat remains nebulous and it will be a mistake to race against an imagined threat by fielding a less than effective system. This phase four will be supported by rigorous, yet affordable, testing of SM 3 Block I-A through Block II-A interceptors to take place across the next eight years. This way the U.S. can keep to the timetable while ensuring technological soundness. Furthermore, the MDA testing procedure needs to be revised for greater rigor and the MDA itself to be put under tighter scrutiny. The MDA is in a precarious spot in that it is built around a product whose usefulness and sheer ability to fulfill its mission is questionable. This means that the agency has significant incentives to make exaggerated public claims about the efficacy of its product, bias the testing process so its product appears to be more effective than it is, and serve as a nexus for defense industry elements to obtain top-dollar contracts while lobbying politicians to keep the initiative alive. Continued oversight is necessary lest the MDA become the runaway government agency of the early twenty-first century. The most important reason for reassessing missile defense is that doing so can create a system that not only protects the U.S. and Europe from ballistic missiles but also progresses RTZ goals. A reckless application of missile defense, regardless of how well intentioned, will undermine RTZ by incentivizing Russian retention of its nuclear weapons. It may also drive up Russias security anxieties, and since Russia is in a precarious political, economic, domestic, and geostrategic position, such a turn of events will enhance the risk of violence in Europe. A nuclear scenario may seem far-fetched today, but just as few analysts predicted the end of the Cold War few will accurately predict where Russia will be in the year 2020. Rather than increase the tension U.S. policy should use the BMD shield strategy in Europe as a way to increase long-term cooperation and better secure both sides of the Atlantic against the Iranian missile threat, as well as build the trust needed to continue pursuing RTZ goals.