Impact of BMDs on Arms Race and Stability
A key factor that could influence the future of BMDs is their potential to trigger a new arms race, especially among the nuclear weapon states. Missile defences, with their inherent capability to negate nuclear deterrence and neutralize offensive forces, create competitions that could affect the existing strategic calculus. The race to construct and deploy BMDs could create a domino effect as states would seek to riposte consequent threats. The response envisaged by various states like China and Russia is to aggressively augment their offensive forces to overwhelm a US BMD shield. This is based on the belief that BMDs are not foolproof defences and hence could be countered through massive attacks, especially with MIRVed missiles. This drive has inspired other states to develop their own BMDs to gain similar advantage.
China is also known to be working on ground-launched compact kinetic-energy and high-energy laser weapons and high-powered microwave weapons for ASAT applications.
While Washington argues that its BMDs are an inherent part of its defensive strategy and are meant to deter “rogue states” with clandestine nuclear programmes and their ballistic missile capability, traditional rivals like Russia sees a US BMD in their neighbourhood as posing a direct threat and also negating the deterrent capability of its nuclear forces, in effect creating a Cuban missile crisis-like situation. As a result, Russia is developing new ICBMs such as Topol-M to overwhelm the US BMD, along with its plan to develop advanced interception capabilities.1 Notwithstanding its opposition to space militarization, Russia is also preparing to augment its capabilities in space, not just to counter the US BMD but also to seek influence and dominance in outer space.2
The same applies to China, which perceives US BMD systems such as GBMDS as space weaponry since they can target assets in outer space.3 China believes BMDs would be a force multiplier to the US nuclear doctrine and in effect negate its nuclear deterrent. For, China believes even a limited US BMD can neutralize its twenty ICBMs capable of reaching the US shores.4 As a result, China is also pursuing various responses which add to the competition. Apart from the primary effort of augmenting its missile inventory, including with MIRVed ICBMs, China is developing ASAT capability along with development of countermeasures.
China is also known to be working on ground-launched compact kinetic-energy and high-energy laser weapons and high-powered microwave weapons for ASAT applications.5 Finally, Beijing has belied its posture of opposing missile defences by demonstrating its BMD capability through an exo-atmospheric interception in January 2010.6 While it was always believed that China has a rudimentary air defence programme with extended theatre defence capabilities, the January 2010 test confirmed Chinese plans to match the US BMD challenge in kind. Like the US, China too perceives the strategic benefits of having twin layers of defensive systems to complement its offensive forces.7
Also read: Future of Aerospace Power
Amidst this great-power race as an inherent feature of BMDs, there are other zones where such domino effects could create instability. For example, the Indian BMD venture is seen as a means to counter Chinese IRBMs supposedly deployed in Tibet, as well as Pakistani missiles. The mere fact that India is developing BMDs could disturb the nuclear calculus in South Asia, with Pakistan worried about the tenacity of its nuclear deterrent. While not exhibiting BMD capabilities, Pakistan with its known skills for clandestine technology development is likely to pursue a counter to the Indian BMD shield, besides enhancing its missile inventory as a natural riposte to the Indian BMD. A similar picture is visualized in the Middle East where countries such as Iran are projecting medium- and longer-range missile capabilities to overwhlem Israeli and US theatre defence systems.
Nuclear Security Environment and Deterrence
Missile defences have a great impact on nuclear deterrence equations. While Russia and China fear their nuclear deterrents being neutralized by US BMDs, Washington perceives BMD as central to its nuclear deterrent strategy. In the US scheme of things, BMD advances deterrence by dissuading countries from pursuing ballistic missiles as it could impose costs on their missiles. It could deter ballistic missile use by denying benefits of an attack and in the process undermine the quantum of its threat. In a comprehensive architecture, offensive forces could increase the risks to an aggressor while defences like BMD would decrease potential gains, thus forcing aggressors to question the utility of their ballistic missiles.
The possibility of an arms race and the concerns raised by China and Russia demand a new equation for a BMD-oriented security environment.
Beyond these rationales, BMDs are seen as a way out of the MAD-oriented strategic equation, as referred by President Reagan. During the Cold War, US planners had devised various deterrent strategies, from assured destruction and massive retaliation to mutual vulnerability. While threats of assured destruction and massive retaliation primarily guided nuclear deterrence equations between the Cold War adversaries, the propriety of leaving space for mutual vulnerability found few takers, notwithstanding the three-decade endurance of the ABM Treaty. It was perceived that defensive systems could offset first-strike capabilities along with diminishing success of assured destruction by the enemy’s second strike, thus imparting undue advantage to the nuclear weapon states armed with BMD capability.
As a result, even when the ABM Treaty was in force, the superpowers purused the development of ABM systems to gain strategic advantage. While Russian ICBMs are no longer perceived as a primary threat by Washington, that may not be the case as regards China, whose ICBM and nuclear forces remain a key factor in American security planning. Added, there are new states with nuclear weapons like North Korea (and others on the threshold like Iran) which may use nuclear weapons as tools for blackmail or brinkmanship, and may not necessarily subscribe to threats of assured destruction. Instead, they may seek to deter the US through their missile capabilities and ranges to reach US soil or its foreign interests. These are threats which the US perceives can only be addressed through BMDs.
However, the possibility of an arms race and the concerns raised by China and Russia demand a new equation for a BMD-oriented security environment, if this technology has to endure in future as a contributor to deterrence stability. Though the US has withdrawn from its initial Eastern Europe plan, it is yet to devise the means to ensure that instability is not permeated by its BMD deployments. There are multiple strategies that could be explored to manage a potential arms race caused by BMDs, while formulating a new BMD-driven deterrence equation. For example, there could be stability among the nuclear weapon states if they can agree on an offensive-defensive balancing equation, as done in the case of nuclear deterrence during the Cold War. While mutual vulnerability is plugged with the deployment of BMDs, there can be a possibility of balancing BMD capabilities and inventories alongside their nuclear forces. This could lead to a zero-sum equation as BMDs would limit the scope for massive retaliation through a second strike even while checking first-use options.
Notes:
- See n. 22.
- See Pavel Podvig and Hui Zhang, “Russia and Chinese Responses to U.S. Military Plans in Space”, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2008, at <http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/militarySpace.pdf>.
- Liu Huaqiu (ed.), Arms Control and Disarmament, Handbook (Beijing: National Defense Industry Publishing, 2000).
- Sha Zukang, “The Impact of the US Missile Defense Programme on the Global Security Structure”. Paper presented at the CPAPD/ORG Joint Seminar on Missile Defense and the Future of the ABM Treaty, Beijing, 13–15 March 2000, cited by Podvig and Hui Zhang, n. 39.
- Ibid.
- “With Defense Test, China Shows Displeasure of U.S.”, New York Times, 12 January 2010.
- See A. Vinod Kumar, “The Dragon’s Shield: Intricacies of China’s BMD Capability”, IDSA Issue Brief, February 2010, http://www.idsa.in/issuebrief/IntricaciesofChinasBMDCapability_250210.
If executed in a bilateral framework, this could mean a (mutual) defensive deterrence arrangement. Even in the scenario of nuclear forces reduction, as currently pursued by the US and Russia, BMDs will act as a stabilizer when such movements are executed. In the long run, balancing of missile defence capabilities might devalue the gains and utility of nuclear deterrence and encourage timely reduction of nuclear weapons, potentially leading to total elimination. However, such optimistic scenarios have limited possibilities considering that security dilemmas are dynamic, uncontrollable processes being created and influenced by offensive (or even defensive) postures of nations.
The US BMD created a security dilemma for Russia and China, prompting them to beef up their offensive and defensive capabilities, thus causing a competition. The path to 2030 and beyond would be embroiled in such competitions though such heightened races might facilitate mutually agreeable stability arrangements. Considering that the ABM Treaty came about as a result of strategic instability created by the superpower arms race, there are possibilities for such new agreements and covenants shaping up when a BMD-driven arms race adds to greater strategic instability.
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