(This article was written by Peter Huessy and appeared in RealClearDefense. Always Blame America)
In “The Powder Keg in Outer Space” Jeffrey Lewis warns the United States, Russia, and China may not yet be in an arms race, but they are gearing up for one. He worries that “Washington is building a new intercontinental ballistic missile, strategic bomber, and ballistic missile submarine.” And Russia is developing a “heavy ICBM and a new warhead while planning upgrades to its submarines and bombers.” Even worse, he notes “China has dug more than 300 new missile silos and fielded air-launched ballistic missiles, and it is developing a new generation of submarines and a stealth bomber.” He concludes all three countries are making decisions about modernizing their nuclear weapons programs “that will bear fruit in the decades to come—a worrisome but notable reversal after decades in which the United States and Russia dismantled thousands of nuclear weapons and China seemed content maintaining a minimal deterrent.”
What happened? Lewis thinks the U.S. ruined any chance for arms control by getting out of the ABM Treaty in 2002. It was only then that Russia and China decided to go forward with their own aggressive nuclear modernization plans.
What’s wrong with this grievance theory of nuclear arms racing?
First, while the U.S. did jettison the ABM Treaty in 2002, over the next decade the U.S. and Russia agreed to two strategic arms deals with Russia—the Moscow Treaty and New START which cut nuclear warheads from 6000 to roughly 2000, a big 67% reduction. Second, the U.S. decided in 2010, some 16 years ago, in a bi-partisan agreement between the Obama administration and the U.S. Congress, to proceed with the nuclear modernization effort we are now undertaking. Third, the U.S. is not engaging in any arms race or contemplating entering such a race as the modernization effort only replaces our legacy nuclear systems that are between 42-70 years old. And that replacement would leave the U.S. with a nuclear deterrent force at exactly the level agreed to under the New START agreement of 2010. Fourth, the decisions have been made to undertake this modernization effort as the only alternative would have been to gradually disarm through ongoing obsolescence. And fifth, the current U.S. policy is hardly a reversal of 2010’s decision. It is in fact a continuation of the 2010 non-partisan agreement to bolster our nuclear deterrent for what now appears to be an even more difficult and tough future nuclear environment.
While it is true the U.S. might add to its nuclear force, in the real world the U.S. is doing what it must to deter. And that includes missile defense. The current arsenal may be augmented through the deployment of theater or regional nuclear forces such as a new land launched or sub launched cruise missile, but both were not ever banned by any arms deal. And whatever limited number of additional strategic and extended deterrent weapons the U.S. does deploy, it is not in search of any objective requiring some kind of “arms race.” The U.S. already faces a very lopsided regional or theater nuclear balance that is getting worse. The 2023 Strategic Posture Commission recognized this, for example, and unanimously agreed that it needs to be remedied quickly. That is not the U.S. racing but trying to right an imbalance.
Lewis provides no current alternative to the U.S. replacing its aging and legacy force but nonetheless he has to make it appear as the U.S. is doing bad things. The U.S. has to be at fault as Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick famously said, “They always have to blame America.” Lewis cleverly resurrects an old bete noire from the height of the Cold War. U.S. missile defenses are bad, bad, bad. The U.S. left the ABM Treaty and built a missile defense. Bad, bad, bad. This narrative allows Lewis to excuse the Russian and Chinese nuclear buildup, although he concedes the 2002-3 U.S. missile defense build was minimal compared to what Russia and China feared the U.S. would do. So, an arms race engendered by missile defense or SDI or Golden Dome is front and center in Lewis’s fevered imagination.
And oh, what fairy tales he feeds us.
First, Lewis embraces the ABM Treaty of 1972 for its supposed arms control benefits. But the companion 1972 SALT deal didn’t result in lower levels of nuclear weapons but actually a 6-fold increase in deployed Soviet strategic weapons by the mid-1980s. Second, according to a recently declassified portion of a 1983 net assessment by OSD, the Soviets could have increased their strategic arsenal to 24,000 warheads under the terms of the SALT II agreement (withdrawn by President Carter in 1979 as its supporters determined there were less than 30 votes for its ratification.) Third, Reagan’s modernization of our own nuclear deterrent and pursuit of missile defense research and development, while also taking down and bankrupting the USSR empire, were the secret to securing under START I major nuclear warhead reductions, not the nuclear freeze favored by Reagan’s opponents.
For example, Mr. Robert McFarlane, President Reagan’s national security adviser, told me that with the support of the entirety of the military joint chiefs, it was the Strategic Defense Initiative or missile defense initiative of March 1983, along with the deployment of U.S. Pershing and Ground Launched Cruise missiles, that was a significant factor in bringing the Soviets to the arms control table. McFarlane related how in late 1983 he hosted a group of Senators who asked how long they had to vote to fund Reagan’s missile defense before an arms control deal with the USSR would be completed. McFarlane told them an INF type treaty would be done in four years—which was exactly what happened when INF was signed in December 1987.
Lewis finds credible the strange Russian and Chinese narrative or paradigm that sees American missile defense as a shield behind which the U.S. can strike first to try and disarm an adversary. Thus, China and Russia are building up their nukes.
However, in the real world, the U.S. limited defense now deployed against strategic long range missiles was primarily to defend the U.S. from North Korean and potentially Iranian threats. Mr. Lewis seems to take the position of the Russian Duma. In 1999 Moscow’s Duma would support the START II treaty but only if the U.S. kept all missile defense work in the laboratory. Even as the Russians armed the North Koreans and Iranians with the very weapons technology that made U.S. missile defenses necessary!
Missile defense isn’t and won’t ever be perfect. It does not have to be. It significantly complicates any attackers plans and thus enhances deterrence. The past decade has seen the launch of thousands of Iranian and terrorist ballistic missiles, drones, and rockets at U.S. interests in the Middle East, especially at Israel. These launches were terror attacks, pure and simple. According to Dr. Uzi Rubin, the premier missile defense expert in the world, Israel shot down 99% of the Iranian ballistic missiles while overall all allied nations shot down between 84-99% of all engaged missile, drone, and rocket launches.
There is no diplomatic virtue in being 100% vulnerable to missile threats. Would Lewis rather trade protection for vulnerability if the rockets were being launched from Canada or Mexico into the United States?
Golden Dome is necessary for our protection and to frustrate the aggressive designs of Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran. These “brothers mayhem” have such weapons with which to make or threaten war on their enemies. The U.S. and its allies have such weapons including defenses to deter and prevent just such wars.
It’s called “peace through strength.”
Peter Huessy is a Senior Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C. based foreign policy and defense think tank.
