The Hindu : Opinion / Leader Page Articles : The folly of missile defence

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jul 10, 2004

Opinion

Opinion - Leader Page Articles

The folly of missile defence

By Sumit Ganguly

The seeming attractiveness of theatre missile defence notwithstanding, it is fraught with almost insuperable technological limitations and strategic flaws.

THE UNITED States is now set to spend the sum of $53 billion over the next several years pursuing the chimera of missile defence. The original idea for this system came from the perfervid imagination of the erstwhile American President, Ronald Reagan, and a handful of his scientific advisers, most notably, Edward Teller. At the time, a number of prominent scientists and strategic analysts warned that a leak-proof missile defence system was not only unworkable but made dubious strategic sense. Despite these scientific and strategic questions, the Reagan administration for mostly ideological and political reasons went ahead with this programme.

As with most strategic programmes this one proved far easier to spawn than to kill. Scientific pressure from the weapons laboratories, bureaucratic imperatives, and political considerations kept this questionable programme alive through both the Bush Sr. and the two Clinton administrations, albeit in a more modified form. With the advent of the second George W. Bush administration the programme received a new lease on its life. Worse still, the administration sought to sell a version of this programme to various allies facing growing threats from ballistic missiles. Not surprisingly, Japan, a key ally, confronting an increasingly imminent threat from North Korea, signed on. Most surprisingly, however, India, which had never expressed the slightest enthusiasm for any American military-technological initiative, for once under the National Democratic Alliance regime, chose to partially endorse this renewed American emphasis on missile defence.

Proponents of missile defence whether in the U.S. or India, no longer argue that they visualise a layered, area-wide defence of their respective homelands. That grand and absurd vision has been justifiably interred with its initial exponent, Ronald Reagan. Instead they will argue that what is called for is really theatre missile defence. Namely, that these missiles would be confined to particular theatres of military operations and thereby deny an adversary an offensive military advantage.

The seeming attractiveness of this proposition notwithstanding, it is fraught with almost insuperable technological limitations and strategic flaws. The technological limitations alone should give its proponents considerable pause. To begin with, most of these systems whether the American Patriot or the Israeli Arrow have shown little promise in their initial tests. Not much information is available in the public domain about the performance of the Israeli Arrow system but a good deal of knowledge exists about the Patriot. In its initial version it fared rather poorly during the first Gulf War. In subsequent tests, which have favoured the system, its ability to shoot down targets has been quite shaky. Nevertheless, its proponents continue to insist that these technological hurdles can be overcome in due course.

Perhaps that is the case. However, even if that felicitous future were to materialise, the proponents have no answer for other problems that confront any missile defence system. How, for example, would the interceptors distinguish between real and dummy missiles? Why would an adversary not simply flood the sky with a range of dummies? What if the adversary were to resort to other counter-measures to deflect the interceptors?

Separately, what use would this terribly expensive system be against a determined adversary, who instead of investing in missiles, simply resorted to a "suitcase bomb"?

The last point cannot be overlooked or trivialised. Both American advocates of missile defence and their Indian acolytes have suggested that they need these defences against so-called rogue regimes who are capable of perpetrating execrable acts. If indeed these adversaries would stop at little, why would they not think of inexpensive, simple and technologically unstoppable strategies to deliver their evil wares?

One could, of course, assume for the purposes of a debate, that the technological limitations can be overcome and that the prospects of "suitcase bomber" getting through extensive border controls are slender. Even if one makes those assumptions, however untenable, other strategic considerations militate against the pursuit of this system. The development of a successful ballistic missile defence system is likely to provoke the worst anxieties of an adversary. This is the inexorable logic of international politics. Even though one state may think that its military acquisitions are purely defensive, another may not be able to distinguish offensive from defensive weaponry. More to the point, weapons acquired for defensive purposes can be used for offence.

This problem, referred to as the "security dilemma" by scholars of international relations, assumes greater significance in the case of two nuclear-armed adversaries. Indian officials may well argue that the country's anti-ballistic missile system is simply designed to degrade a Pakistani nuclear strike against its forces and thereby induce Pakistan to desist from its continued support of insurgents in Kashmir and elsewhere. Since Pakistan's acquisition of nuclear capabilities, long before May 1998, it had come to the realisation that India was inhibited from launching a conventional attack for fear of escalation to the nuclear level. With a ballistic missile defence system in place, some Indian security planners believe that they would be able to cope with the threat of Pakistani nuclear missiles thereby renewing the conventional military option against Pakistan.

Despite the apparent attractiveness of this logic it has important flaws. First, the Pakistanis are likely to build more cheap missiles, thereby dramatically raising the costs of India's missile defence program. Second, despite India's professions of a missile defence designed to boost deterrence, Pakistani defence planners will fear that such a system is merely a pretext for India seeking "escalation dominance." This term means that in the event of a crisis, one party will be able to simply ratchet up the pressure on the escalation ladder. In the end, this will enable the more formidable party to seek a "first strike" capability.

Such fears from the Pakistani standpoint are hardly unfounded. India with its vastly greater indigenous industrial and technological capabilities can seek to pursue such a strategy. Even if Pakistani planners devise an initial use of nuclear weapons, India's ballistic missile system could theoretically cope with this strike and then retaliate with its much more substantial forces annihilating Pakistan's capabilities in perpetuity. Though this scenario appears far-fetched, it is precisely the dire possibility that Pakistanis will contemplate. Stated in another fashion, India would be in a position to strike Pakistan at will knowing that Pakistan's limited capabilities could be dealt with through its missile defence system. To borrow another term from the language of strategic studies, India would be well placed to deal with Pakistan's "ragged retaliation."

The rub, of course, lies in a number of the underlying assumptions and misgivings of both sides. On the Indian side, a leaky and uncertain ballistic missile defence system may give risk-prone Indian defence planners much incentive to strike Pakistan first in the event of a future crisis. On the Pakistani side, the possibility of the Indian missile defence system actually working would reduce confidence in its existing nuclear and ballistic missile arsenal. This would induce its already hawkish military planners to envisage a worst-case scenario and think of possible ways of expanding their missile forces and of hardening and dispersing their silos against an Indian attack. All of this would only provoke more counter-measures on the Indian side. Almost inevitably, this action-reaction cycle would lock the two states in an arms race of considerable proportions and at substantial cost.

Of course, some unreconstructed hawks in the Indian policymaking establishment, not unlike their Reaganite counterparts, would not see this as an undesirable outcome. They would argue that India with its far higher and sustainable growth rates could afford to run this race and drive Pakistan's economy into the ground. After all, this is precisely the argument that the more inveterate Soviet-baiting members of the Reagan administrations made about the utility of extraordinarily high defence budgets. In turn, they argue that the Soviet effort to cope with American military spending contributed to its demise. The dubiousness of this argument requires a separate column.

Even if the Reaganites were correct about their assumptions about the Soviet collapse there is little reason why Indian hawks should seek to emulate that strategy in dealing with Pakistan. A disintegrating state on one's borders armed with nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles and populated with a range of jihadi groups filled with an inveterate hatred of India is hardly a roseate future to contemplate.

(Sumit Ganguly is the Rabindranath Tagore Chair in Indian Cultures and Civilisations and the Director of the India Studies Program at Indiana University in Bloomington.)

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Opinion

News Update

Stories in this Section

CONFRONTING AIDS

EDWARDS ON THE TICKET

The folly of missile defence

Blair's back to the wall

The Budget and the stock markets

Budget 2004-05

Universities & research

Death penalty