It was all smiles out on the range when, against a deep blue sky, an American interceptor rocket took out on May 30 an incoming “enemy” long-range, missile (which in a real attack would be carrying a nuclear warhead). Generals and Congressmen and women jumped for joy.
But
what was there to be joyous about? Over the decades of the Cold War the nuclear
deterrent was supposed to be the instrument that kept the peace. MAD, it was
called- Mutually Assured Destruction.
Simply
put, if you attacked me you might catch me by surprise and destroy many of my
cities and military bases, but in fact you wouldn’t dare do it because beyond
surprise is my “second-strike force”. Hidden away, deep underground,
invulnerable to attack, I can retaliate with that.
So
in real life you will not dare attack me and I won’t attack you. That is a
stalemate. That is deterrence. Forget morality, forget the chance of a rogue or
accidental launch – this is what the military say kept the peace throughout the
Cold War, and maybe still does as the ice cap returns, argue its supporters.
However,
if there is now going to be a big jump in technology and you can intercept my
second-strike with your interceptor rockets we no longer have the surety of
MAD. I’m wide open and you can “get me”. You no longer fear retaliation and I
will have no choice but to surrender after you have demolished some of my
cities and military bases.
Fortunately,
the technology is still in its early stages. This success came after a number
of failures. It was done on a windless day. Moreover, the “enemy” had fired
only one rocket not thousands. This gives us a little time to abolish this
counterproductive development.
Just
the fact that this new technology is being worked on returns geopolitical
rivalry to centre stage. If a country fears this is going to be the unstable
world of the future then countries will go out of their way to build alliances
and to ceaselessly work to undermine the status of their opponent.
We
see this already, with what is going on in Ukraine, with Moscow’s effort to
cosy up to Beijing, the expansion of NATO, with President Donald Trump warming
up relations with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, and, until Trump became
president, with the increase in savage personal criticism of each side’s
leadership. (It could be argued that Trump is trying to calm this possible
escalation of confrontation by refusing to publically support Article 5 of the NATO
constitution at the recent NATO summit.
This
made the Europeans extremely fretful, fearful that it meant that the U.S. was
pulling back its commitment to come to their defence if attacked- but that is
just conjecture on my part, which I cannot prove.)
The
next step will be for both Russia and the U.S., if they feel that it is
becoming easier to be successfully attacked, “then they need to deploy more
capable retaliatory arsenals to counter the growing risks[JP1] ”, as Keir
Lieber succinctly puts it in the current issue of Harvard University’s
“International Security”. The future suggests there will be no more ceilings or
cuts in nuclear weapons, as has happened in stages over many decades. It will
be the reverse- a new build up.
Two
things need to be added to this analysis. First, that Pakistan and India could
have similar problems. So could China and the U.S., (but China has only a small
armoury of nuclear weapons).
Second,
this rocket that can blow up an incoming rocket high in the sky is not the only
modern development that can tear a big hole in deterrence.
These
days conventional weapons which can be hidden away and moved quite easily have
become able to destroy nuclear silos and sites. Above a certain size silos
cannot be hidden away from satellites because of the amount of heavy equipment
needed to construct them. More hardening of the silos is likewise difficult.
Cyber-attacks on command and control and the silo operation itself will start
to happen, as the technology develops.
The
accuracy of missiles is increasing fast – more silos or submarines may suffer a
direct hit. Low-yield nuclear weapons that can cause less civilian fatalities
may make policy-makers less inhibited about using them. Improvements in remote
sensing, data processing and communication may make nuclear missile-loaded
submarines more vulnerable. The fast increase in deployment of satellites has
revolutionised the ability of a would-be attacker to find out what is exactly
going on on the ground, even at night.
All
these scientific and technological developments are eating away at MAD.
The
only way to avoid an imbalance that can lead to a civilisation-destroying
strike is to get rid of these weapons now. Before long the window of
opportunity will be closed. [IDN-INPS – 6 June 2017]
Note: For 17
years Jonathan Power was a foreign affairs columnist for the International
Herald Tribune. He has forwarded this and his previous Viewpoints for
publication in IDN-INPS. Copyright: Jonathan Power.