May The Shield Be With You

By CHRISTOPHER JOHN FARLEY

In the post-cold war world, Americans worry more about dotcom stocks falling on the NASDAQ than they do about missiles falling from the sky. For those who do fear nuclear holocaust, however, there is www.protectamericansnow.com There you can get your very own "Customized Missile Threat Profile." Just type in your ZIP code, and the program will tell you which countries purportedly have the ability to hit your community with intercontinental ballistic missiles--and which countries may soon have the power to make your life that kind of nightmare. The site was masterminded by Frank Gaffney, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Reagan Administration, who now runs a group that supports the installation of an antimissile shield to protect the U.S. "Take Action!" the site urges. "Your government does not provide you with any protection against missile attack from these and other countries."

The heart of Ronald Reagan's 1983 Star Wars program lives on, kept beating by a mix of election-year politicking, behind-the-scenes defense-industry puppeteering, and a fiercely committed group of conservative think tanks and antimissile-system advocates. It has propelled the National Missile Defense (NMD) system toward this Friday's scheduled test over the Pacific and is likely to move its development forward no matter the result. Pentagon officials liken the congressional push to deploy such a system to the early 1980s' fervent but vain effort to implement a "nuclear freeze" on the U.S. military. But they say missile-defense advocates appear to have a better chance of winning this time.

Not surprisingly, defense contractors too have a major interest in an NMD system, especially since its ultimate cost is estimated at more than $30 billion. The four largest weapons contractors--Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and TRW--together received more than $2.2 billion in missile-defense research-and-development money over a recent 21-month span, according to a report issued by the World Policy Institute. In 1997 and '98, the latest years for which figures are available, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and TRW spent $35 million on lobbying. Boeing is even readying a television campaign touting the need for missile defense.

But defense contractors don't really have to worry about politicians' turning off the funding spigot. They maintain that lawmakers' support for deployment remains solid and won't be weakened by test failures. Moreover, the issue is thriving in the presidential campaign. In May, George W. Bush unveiled his plan for combining unilateral arms cuts with a national missile system far more extensive--and expensive --than the one the Clinton Administration is considering. While Clinton's plan calls for the initial deployment of some 100 land-based interceptors at one site, Bush's yet-to-be-detailed plan envisions many more interceptors at numerous sites on land and at sea. Says Bush: "Our nation needs a new approach to nuclear security that matches a new era."

This particular new approach will certainly mean a new era in strategic thinking. The construction of NMD would be a violation of the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty with Russia. If Clinton pushes forward with the as yet unproven NMD, not only will security relations with Moscow be upended but a new era of strategic instability with China and other nations may also emerge.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been traveling around Europe lobbying hard to undermine support for the U.S. antimissile shield--and making dire predictions of a "new arms race." America's European allies are concerned too. Senior European diplomats argue that if the U.S. creates a national missile defense, European reaction will be, "What are we going to do? How are we going to defend ourselves?" It will be badly received in Europe. And though China has only around 20 ICBMs, Beijing has threatened to build more if the U.S. goes ahead with NMD. Last week 45 U.S. experts on China wrote Clinton urging him to put off NMD, arguing that it would be viewed in China as "a sign of increased hostility." Says Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was Jimmy Carter's National Security Adviser: "We have operated 40 years on deterrence. If we're going to abandon it, we need to determine what it will be abandoned for."

Proponents of NMD say it is justified because of a new threat, one posed by so-called rogue states like North Korea and Iran that are acquiring increasingly sophisticated missile technology capable of delivering not only nuclear warheads but also biological and chemical weapons. In short, Moscow is no longer the only danger. "Today the world is no longer bipolar," says Henry Kissinger. "Today the threats have moved into different areas. Deliberate vulnerability, when the technology is available to avoid it, cannot be a strategic objective, cannot be a political objective, and cannot be a moral objective of any American President." In 1995 Clinton vetoed legislation that would have required the deployment of a missile shield by 2003, saying there was no threat justifying such a deployment. But in 1998, North Korea test-fired the Taepo Dong-1, a long-range, three-stage missile that indicated Pyongyang was well on its way to building a missile capable of reaching U.S. soil. And so, last year, Clinton signed the National Missile Defense Act into law. It calls for the construction of an antimissile system "as soon as technologically possible."

The roguishness of states, however, is in the eye of the beholder. North Korea has moved to thaw relations with South Korea. For that matter, the State Department has announced it will no longer use the term rogue state and instead will substitute the more benign description "state of concern." In a new book, Rogue States and U.S. Foreign Policy, Robert S. Litwak, a former National Security Council staff member, argues that the term distorts policymaking by demonizing whole countries. Just a handful of nations make up the nuclear club, and these aspiring members are under constant scrutiny. "The ballistic-missile threat is confined, limited and changing relatively slowly," argues Joseph Cirincione, director of the Carnegie Non-Proliferation Project, which is part of the nonprofit Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The NMD's limitations are still severe. (See previous story.) Critics argue that simple countermeasures by enemy states--such as the use of radar-absorbing materials or balloon decoys--may be enough to foil the U.S.'s pricey shield. Rogue states looking to deliver bombs could simply send them in on cargo ships or in suitcases. One of the few skeptics in Congress, Senator Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, has proposed an amendment to next year's defense-authorization bill requiring that the missile shield be given more realistic tests employing the countermeasures that foes would be likely to use.

The NMD issue has led to a flurry of diplomatic byplay. Putin is offering to cooperate with NATO on a "boost-phase" antimissile system that would shoot down large missiles on their way up (easier to target with the fiery exhaust plume trailing them) rather than when their much smaller warheads are in mid-flight, as in the U.S. plan. Putin's proposals are sketchy, but Europeans, worried about being left out of a U.S. shield, are listening. American officials advise caution and note that Moscow does not have the financial wherewithal for such a scheme.

Clinton may play a waiting game on missile defense. He might choose to start clearing ground for one of the first phases of NMD, a radar station on Shemya, on the westernmost tip of Alaska. But he might hold off actual construction, technically avoiding a breach of the ABM treaty while keeping the U.S. on a timetable to build NMD before any "states of concern" are projected to have long-range missiles. Senate majority leader Trent Lott has indicated that he wouldn't mind seeing the NMD decision put off until the next Administration. For now, it seems, the question will remain on hold as the Pentagon awaits the results of this Friday's carefully choreographed antimissile test.

--Reported by Mark Thompson and Douglas Waller/Washington and Andrew Meier/Moscow

With reporting by Mark Thompson and Douglas Waller/Washington and Andrew Meier/Moscow