by Matthew Chavez
Daily Lobo columnist
In fall of 2006, the Bush administration announced plans to place an antimissile system in Central Europe for the stated purpose of addressing Middle East ballistic missile threats. Russian President Vladimir Putin has forcefully opposed the perceived intrusion into Moscow's domain, arguing that the "system is targeted against something that does not exist" and could trigger a new arms race that would threaten Eurasian stability.
Bush and Putin failed to settle the dispute at a recent summit in Maine, and on Saturday, Putin retaliated by announcing Russian withdrawal from a key arms limitation agreement. I spoke to Victoria Samson, a research analyst at the Center for Defense Information, to shed light on these developments.
Daily Lobo: How do you judge President Putin's surprise counteroffer to create a shared missile-defense site in Azerbaijan?
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
Victoria Samson: My opinion is that the United States will not go for this. We seem bound and determined to have our own interceptors and our radar in areas that we can control. If we were to put the radar in the Czech Republic and interceptors in Poland, it would be under U.S. jurisdiction. I don't think there's any (U.S.) interest in cooperation.
DL: Russia's First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said on July 4 that if the United States proceeds with the plan, Russia will pursue an "asymmetrical and effective response." What do you think Moscow has in mind?
VS: It's very vaguely worded, so you can interpret it any way you want. It does indicate a decline in the relationship between the United States and Russia, which is going to have negative consequences in other situations where we want to cooperate, like, for example, Iran.
DL: A 2003 report by nuclear-disarmament analysts estimates that the long-term cost of the missile-defense program could reach $1.2 trillion. Is this figure correct?
VS: Over $100 billion has been spent on (missile defense) since 1983. Under the Bush administration, missile-defense spending has increased greatly. Now it's roughly $10 billion per year. Every other Pentagon program has to say, "Here's what we want to build; here's the reason why; and here's how much we think it's going to cost over the long term." Missile defense doesn't have that. They have this thing called spiral development. It's very nebulous - there's no official estimate as to how much missile defense will cost. (The $1.2 trillion estimate) was a very speculative number, but there hasn't been anything in the government to contradict it.
DL: What have U.S. taxpayers gained from this massive
investment?
VS: We've gained very little. We have a very limited missile defense deployed . in Alaska and California. People support missile defense, claiming that their mere existence provides a deterrent effect. I would argue that we've rushed these missiles out into the field before they've proven they can work appropriately. These missiles have a success rate of six intercepts out of 12 attempts, and that's under heavily scripted circumstances. We've rushed this missile-defense system out into the field to meet a nonexistent threat or very limited threat and spent a lot of money and priority on a weapons system that doesn't necessarily deserve it, when other funding requests, i.e., armor for our troops in Iraq, go unmet.
DL: The Defense Department warns that the global proliferation of ballistic and cruise missiles presents a "direct and immediate threat to the security of the United States and its deployed military forces, allies and friends." Is this description accurate?
VS: Very few countries have the long-range missiles that can hit the continental United States. It's very difficult, technologically speaking, to do so. Often there's a hype about the so-called missile threat to justify spending on missile defense.
DL: Where do the Poles and Czechs stand on the U.S. plan to locate missile-defense capabilities in their countries?
VS: Officially, the governments are open to the idea. The Poles cooperated with the United States on Iraq, and they feel they didn't get a whole lot in response. The people of the Czech Republic do not like the idea. They feel that merely having a (missile defense) radar, they're going to become targets, and they're worried about the health consequences of a powerful radar on their territory.
DL: On June 29, former President Bill Clinton decried missile defense as a "colossal waste of money." But he also advocated a return to the model envisioned by President Ronald Reagan, who, Clinton said, "wanted everyone to have" missile defense. Would the proliferation of antimissile technology increase global security?
VS: That presupposes a very big assumption - that missile-defense technology can work effectively and reliably. So far it has not, and that's where the danger lies: If you have a government making decisions based on a system that's unproven, then you're putting all your faith in a system that doesn't deserve it and may end up turning on you if you get in a situation where missiles are fired.
DL: What is the best defense against missile threats?
VS: If you really thought some country was going to launch missiles at the United States, you could send in Special Operations Forces or conventional missiles and destroy the missiles on the field before they were launched. There's all sorts of arms control regimes that we could be working on. There's economic pressure. There's diplomatic pressure. People tend to look at it as a black-or-white situation - either we have missile defense or we have no way of handling missile proliferation. There's a lot of tools in our toolbox to deal with
these situations.
Matthew Chavez is a political science major with a focus on international relations and a minor in Middle Eastern studies
