Prepared for the IISS/CEPS European Security Forum, Brussels, April 2, 2001

Missile Defence: European Approaches and Interests

by Klaus Becher, Helmut Schmidt Senior Fellow for European Security, IISS

European NATO countries have been spectators to the debate about defending the US against ballistic missile attacks. While there have been national differences in Europe's reactions to the national missile defence (NMD) programme, it is obvious that most Europeans don't like it. The French seem somewhat more convinced than others that missile defence is inherently foolish and unworkable. Some British experts seem to insist more than others that any programme that might undermine NATO's nuclear deterrence and strategic unity should be avoided. And perhaps Germans, more than others, worry about perceived dangers to the ABM and other arms control treaties, and generally about relations with Russia. Most Europeans at present believe that US defence against long-range ballistic missiles is a slap in the face for Russia, a dangerous provocation for China and an inadequate response to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and missile technology.

In spite of the widely shared assessment that the US is nevertheless determined, across party lines, to go ahead with missile defence, European allies have continued to offer only lukewarm diplomatic support. At the same time, the issue was not high on the agenda of European leaders, and little effort was made to base public pronouncements on a thorough understanding of the facts concerning technology, costs and goals of actual US missile defence efforts. NMD was allowed to become a bogey in the European debate: Nothing good could come from it.

While this attitude did not cause harm during the indecisive Clinton years, it clearly won't suffice in conversations with the Bush administration. It was Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's 1998 Commission report on the accelerating threat of missile attacks with biological, chemical and nuclear weapons that brought missile defence back on the political agenda. Europeans must learn to deal with US missile defence on its merits. Some basic insights must be taken on bord:

• Current US plans are not a carry-over from the cold war; on the contrary, they are a consequence of its end and the resulting strategic pluralism and military uncertainty, amplified by the diffusion of advanced technology. It is not the goal of these plans to render nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete, as President Ronald Reagan had advertised the strategic defence initiative (SDI), and specifications do not include a quest for near-100% protection.
• The assessment that there is a growing missile and WMD threat, in spite of differences of opinion on certain specific countries, is shared within NATO and also with other allies such as Israel and Japan, as well as Russia.
• The required technology is not a matter of science fiction, and an operational missile defence system is not unaffordable for the US. Even if total costs accumulate beyond $60 billion over 20 years, this would still be within the cost range of other large US procurement programmes and consume just about 1% of the Pentagon's budget.
• The West European cold-war concern that the US would cease to be a reliable ally if it weren't exposed to assured nuclear destruction, sometimes still quoted to explain fears of 'decoupling', is today so far removed from actual definitions of US interests and the functioning of US defence policy that is has become entirely incomprehensible. Acquiring defences against missile attacks reduces the risk of strategic blackmail and thus helps to preserve the ability to act politically and militarily in crisis situations. Protecting this ability to act has always been one of the central goals of the Atlantic Alliance.
• US missile defence efforts are not only about safeguarding US territory. The US is spending 50% more on theatre missile defence (TMD) than on NMD, and is very clear about the military priority of theatre missile defence. Moreover, the Bush administration has rightly stressed that Europeans are also likely to be threatened by missiles and WMD. Aggressors will not fail to note that the US is politically and economically so intertwined with its allies that blackmailing them would affect the US nearly as much as direct threats.

Based on the Bush administration's approach to the ongoing nuclear review process, there appears to be a good chance now that further reductions of US strategic nuclear weapons will become possible in conjunction with a move into strategic defences. Such a build-down would be very much in the interest of most European countries, as it would strengthen international non-proliferation and risk-reduction efforts and could increase the prospects for successful regional arms control and disarmament efforts in various strategically exposed parts of the world, including Europe's periphery.

Looking at Russia and the ABM Treaty, Europeans will continue to consider it decisive that the transition is achieved not unilaterally but in cooperation. The continuous record of US-Russian cooperative threat reduction measures and additional achievements such as the new joint early warning centre should be recognised as reassuring demonstrations of the fact that common security has indeed replaced bipolar antagonism, in spite of recurring political obstacles and complications.

Most likely, Moscow will in the end cooperate with the West on missile defence. However, Russian leaders and negotiators will try to extract as high a price as they can. The inclusion of Russian technology, research and industrial capacities in future missile defence systems may well be one central and to a certain extent even attractive component. European defence and aerospace companies would be well advised to fight for their share in the eventual deal not just by seeking a transatlantic foothold in the US defence market but also by engaging Russian capacities now, presumably against massive US resistance.

While it is not necessarily obvious that the US and NATO must urgently build extensive missile defences at this point in time, there is no convincing reason why the US should not go ahead in that direction. This is a matter of strategic choice, and certainly legitimate for the purpose of controlling the right mix of instruments for defence in potential future conflicts while exploiting technological advantages intelligently. European countries may want to actively help shape the ongoing process of strategic change of which missile defence is just one element, and support the emergence of increased stability and cooperation.

The main reason why the US believes in the need for missile defence is that its forces are likely to be fighting wars against aggressors who possess such missiles and are prepared to use them. As Europeans pledge to upgrade their own defence capabilities within NATO and also on their own in ESDP to be better able to share the burdens of maintaining international peace and security, it is more likely than not that European forces will be fighting such wars, too. As one of the consequences of Europe's intensified security and defence ambitions, it should begin to be more concerned about protecting its own troops and installations in theatre as well as at home against the full range of ballistic threats to be expected.

NATO as a whole has been operating under the sound assumption for a number of years that by 2010 all of Europe will be within reach of missiles from outside Europe. European politicians, however, have so far not been willing to acknowledge this assessment publicly, presumably also out of fear that this would impose additional demands on limited defence budgets. If this attitude were ever to change, there would probably be substantial synergies to be found in pursuing the intended upgrade of European C3 (command, control and communications) capabilities in conjunction with a highly integrated systems approach such as integrated extended air defence that has immediate practical application and is multinationally networked by necessity.

The Bush administration's apparent new focus on sea- or air-based boost-phase defence is unlikely to make a big difference from a European viewpoint. The new US eagerness to include forward-based elements and reflect the requirement to protect allies and US troops abroad might be seen by Europeans as an interesting opening to pursue the integrated extended air defence and ballistic missile defence approaches developed jointly in NATO working groups, with French participation, during the 1990s. However, one needs to distinguish between forward-based boost-phase defence and the kind of integrated European TBMD (theatre ballistic missile defence) architecture that might include US sea-based radar and upper-tier interceptor capabilities in the Mediterranean. While these capabilities would help to protect European countries and US troops in Europe by targeting incoming missiles on their re-entry, they would add nothing to US national missile defence against ballistic missile attacks from the Middle East.

For boost-phase intercepts during the burn phase of the missile's engine, interceptors need to be deployed within a few hundred kilometres of the attacking missile's launch site. For threats from the Middle East, this would in practice require land-based forward interceptor sites that are strategically much less attractive than the more flexible sea-based ones. It is unlikely that any future US national missile defence architecture would at the same time provide protection to Europe through boost-phase intercepts. If Europeans want to be protected against missile attacks, they will have to build their own defences, and pay for them.

Politically, missile defence is likely to be seen by European governments mainly as an additional source of potential irritation in the transatlantic relationship at a time of accumulating, partially value-based conflicts over trade and a widespread desire among European politicians to assert Europe's own identity vis-à-vis Washington, New York and Hollywood as a matter of principle. Europeans are unlikely to risk causing further aggravation over missile defence. They should not miss the opportunity, however, as they come out in support of the US on this issue, to win active US support for the EU's own ongoing defence-capabilities efforts. This involves, above all, the establishment of satisfactory conditions for transatlantic defence-industrial interaction.

The institutionalised political, diplomatic and defence-technological cooperation in NATO offers good opportunities to Europeans to make the most of Washington's declared willingness to consult before taking decisions on missile defence. Beyond that, European foreign, security and defence policy should certainly also aspire to influence other actors such as Russia and China, and to provide guidance to European public opinion. The price for failing to play a constructive, determined role might be a popular relapse into the obsolete East-West mindset when European security matters were decided in Washington and Moscow over Europeans' heads. The US-Russian joint statement on strategic stability of 4 June 2000, while listing the strategic commonalties shared by these two powers, makes no mention of the European allies and the need to consult them or others.

European governments would be well advised to make sure they become, or remain, serious and respected actors in the missile defence arena. If Europe wants its voice heard, it must speak up and help to shape developments in pursuit of European interests. There is quite a long list of issues and interests worth pushing from a European viewpoint that are unlikely to be at centre stage if the matter is left to the US, Russia, and China alone. On the other hand, Europeans are not really needed, for example, for placing the issue of continued respect for the ABM treaty on the agenda because Russia, as a party to this treaty, will take care of this point in its own right.

In addition to the interest in developing the transatlantic relationship and maintaining cooperation with Russia, specific European fields of interest that need intensified attention and discussion in the context of the transition towards US deployment of operational ballistic missile defences include:

• Access to missile defence technology and components: Future efforts to develop European extended air defence against ballistic missiles will require sharing some elements of US missile defences, also including assured direct access to space-based early warning and tracking data. As far as Article IX of the ABM treaty stands against such shared use of non-nuclear ballistic missile defence (BMD) components, it should be in Europe's interest to support an understanding among ABM Treaty parties to change this situation. US negotiators raised this point with their Russian counterparts in Geneva in January 2000.
• Abolition of nuclear ABM: The 1972 ABM Treaty legitimises the possession and use of nuclear weapons for ballistic missile defence and merely limits their deployed numbers. To this day, Moscow is defended with such crude nuclear interceptors against potential missile attacks. Nuclear safety concerns and the devastating consequences of any accidental or intentional use of this neglected class of nuclear weapons in Russia's stockpile demand a revision of the ABM Treaty to ban and dismantle all nuclear-tipped ABMs.
• Deep cuts: On strategic nuclear arsenals, Europeans should remind the US and Russia of their obligation under Article 6 of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to pursue nuclear disarmament. This also includes US adherence to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).
• Addressing theatre nuclear forces (TNF) arsenals: Russia still holds about 10,000 nuclear charges for non-strategic nuclear weapons at approximately 40 storage sites that give reason for concern about safety and proliferation. Europeans have a strong interest in pushing for more transparency, confidence-building measures and cooperative risk reduction in this field, not just bilaterally between the US and Russia, but also with involvement of NATO and the EU.
• Controls on anti-satellite weapons (ASAT): As missile defence technology overlaps substantially with the capacity to attack satellites in orbit, both the proliferation of such technology and its potentially destabilising application for targeting space platforms need to be addressed. A world-wide ban on testing interceptors in an ASAT mode could help to avoid an arms race in space and prevent a situation where pre-emption against missile defence sites may become necessary to protect essential space-based C4I assets (command, control, communications, computers and intelligence).
• Banning interceptors in space: While boost-phase and mid-course missile defence from space may look like a technologically attractive option in the long term for the US, its pursuit would open the gates to a broad militarisation of space that could only result in much-increased vulnerability for all nations. The post-ABM regime should include a ban on developing, testing and deploying space-based intercept devices, as a step toward banning all other weapons in full or partial orbit.

Such accompanying measures of common security geared at strengthening international confidence in the willingness of the US not to exploit its economic and technological advantage in destabilising ways would not only broaden the common ground with Russia and might attract China to a dialogue on arms control but would also demonstrate the coherence of NATO's conceptual approach to security and cooperation and thus help to keep Europe's own defence identity firmly anchored in the transatlantic alliance.