With the recent test of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles by North Korea, it's clear that purely bilateral weapons control treaties between the US and Russia are obsolete. Nuclear weapons, unfortunately, have been globalized.
The problem with ballistic missiles has always been that their short flight time gives other nations little opportunity to determine if the intent of the country launching them. With more and more countries obtaining ballistic missile technology, there is a far greater chance that a rocket launch will be mistaken for an attack, possibly with nuclear weapons. Many of these countries lack the early warning and tracking capability to determine the intent of a launch. As a result, the policy of many of these nations is to "launch on warning".
I think it's time for a worldwide treaty banning military ballistic missiles. Any military ballistic rocket should be limited in range to whatever is possible through modern long range artillery fire. Current gunpowder based artillery can fire, at most, around 60 miles.
I think jet powered cruise missles should be exempt from such a treaty as they have the same, or longer, flight time than most long range bombers, which gives a nation time to determine the intent of the launch and intercept an accidental launch. Additionally, the tracking systems required for detecting cruise missiles is usually much less sophisticated than the one needed for tracking an exoatmospheric ballistic missile.
From the US perspective, such a treaty would do little to harm our defense posture and would enhance global stability. Moving our weapons posture from ballistic missiles to cruise missiles and bombers would only reflect the current military reality. Ballistic missiles have proven to be pretty militarily useless because of the risk of collateral damage and the risk of an accidental assessment that the use of one is a nuclear attack.
Comments (6)
"The problem with ballistic missiles has always been that their short flight time gives other nations little opportunity to determine if the intent of the country launching them."
Personally, I would have no problem determining the "intent" of any missle headin in my direction.....
I think that it is an idea that should be pursued. hairlip is ignorant of the length of time from a missle launch to it's landing. It's not just intent, it's detecting the launch and determining the appropriate response.
Besides the public relations value of pushing a global ballistic missile ban, such a policy would allow us to take funds currently allocated to the maintenance of the 40+ year old ballistic arsenal and spend those precious defense dollars on weapons we can actually use in today's combat, like cruise missiles, attack submarines, and bombers.
This is not a peacenik proposal. It is a realpolitik proposal that advances us in the direction of nuclear disarmament while enhancing our own security. The most likely response to a nuclear attack by a rogue nation today is a large bomber and cruise missile strike against the rogue nation, not a ballistic missile attack.
Draw a map from any of the US ballistic missile launch fields to North Korea on Google Earth. You'll notice that all of the trajectories carry the missile over Russian, European, and Chinese airspace. The same goes for a ballistic missile attack on Iran. This makes them absolutely useless to us because we can't fly them anywhere close to Russia, China, or Europe without the high risk of starting an all-out, accidental nuclear war.
Ballistic missiles are an obsolete, dangerously unstable World War II technology. The advanced industrial nations have much more to gain by eliminating the technology on a global scale. Only an advanced nation can field a bomber and/or cruise missile force capable of a retaliatory strike.
A vast majority of the developing nations win because they don't have to engage in an arms race for advanced ballistic missile technology. They can spend their money on development.
I'm a big believer in Ronald Reagan's phrase of "trust, but verify". To make this work, you have to build a full, worldwide ABM system and have a strong mechanism ensuring treaty compliance, unlike the failed compliance mechanisms of the NPT.
The problem with treaties is that they are often violated.
The Chemical Weapons Ban is a good example of a treaty that has worked. Those countries that didn't follow it are very isolated.
If you limit the amount of ballistic missiles, it's a lot easier and cheaper to target your own forces.
Here's a link to a proposed Zero Ballistic Missile (ZBM) treaty framework as proposed in 1993:
http://www.fas.org/asmp/library/articles/zerobal93.htm
The article makes a valid point that ballistic missiles are much easier to detect because they have to be openly tested. Nuclear weapons, on the other hand, can be hidden.