Sometimes it is possible to
read or view something that completely changes the way one looks at things. I
had that experience last week when I read an article at Lobelog entitled “A Plea
for Common Sense on Missile Defense,” written by Joe Cirincione, a former
staffer on the House Armed Services Committee who now heads the Ploughshares
Fund, which is a Washington DC based global foundation that seeks to stop the
spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
The article debunks much of
the narrative being put out by the White House and Pentagon regarding missile
defense. To be sure, it is perfectly reasonable to mistrust anything that comes
out of the federal government justifying war given its track record going back
to the War of 1812. And the belligerent posture of the United States towards
Iran and North Korea can well be condemned based on its own merits, threatening
war where there are either no real interests at stake or where a diplomatic
solution has for various reasons been eschewed.
But the real reason why the
White House gets away with saber rattling is historical, that the continental
United States has not experienced the consequences of war since Pancho Villa
invaded in 1916. This is a reality that administration after administration has
exploited to do what they want when dealing with foreign nations: whatever
happens “over there” will stay “over there.”
Americans consequently do
not know war except as something that happens elsewhere and to foreigners,
requiring only that the U.S. step in on occasion and bail things out, or screw
things up depending on one’s point of view. This is why hawks like John McCain,
while receiving a “Liberty” award from Joe Biden, can, with a straight face,
get away with denouncing those Americans who have become
tired of playing at being the world’s policeman. He describes them as fearful
of “the world we have organized and led for three-quarters of a century,
[abandoning] the ideals we have advanced around the globe, [refusing] the
obligations of international leadership and our duty to remain ‘the last best
hope of earth’ for the sake of some half-baked, spurious nationalism.”
McCain’s completely fatuous
account of recent world history befits a Navy pilot who was adept at crashing
his planes and almost sank his own aircraft carrier. He also made propaganda
radio broadcasts for the North Vietnamese after he was captured. The McCain
globalist-American Exceptionalism narrative is also, unfortunately, echoed by
the media. The steady ingestion of lies and half-truths is why the public puts
up with unending demands for increased defense spending, accepting that the
world outside is a dangerous place that must be kept in line by force
majeure. Yes, we are the good guys.
But underlying the
citizenry’s willingness to accept that the military establishment should
encircle the globe with foreign bases to keep the world “safe” is the
assumption that the 48 States are invulnerable, isolated by broad oceans and
friendly nations to the north and south. And protected from far distant threats
by technology, interceptor systems developed and maintained at enormous expense
to intercept and shoot down incoming ballistic missiles launched by enemies
overseas.
In a recent speech, relating to the North
Korean threat, President Donald Trump boasted that the United States
anti-missile defenses are 97% effective, meaning that they can intercept and
destroy incoming projectiles 97 times out of a 100. Trump was seeking to assure
the public that whatever happens over in Korea, it cannot have an undesirable
outcome over here in the continental United States nor, apparently, in Hawaii,
Alaska and overseas possessions like Guam, all of which are shielded under the
anti-missile defense umbrella. Trump was undoubtedly referring to, even if he
was ignorant of many of the specifics, the Ground Based Midcourse Defense (GMD)
installations in Alaska and Hawaii, which are part of the existing $330 billion
missile defense system.
It is certainly comforting
to learn that the United States cannot be physically attacked with either
nuclear or conventional weapons no matter what our government does overseas,
but is it true? What if the countermeasures were somewhat closer to 0%
effective? Would that change the thinking about going to war in Korea? Or about
confronting Russia in Eastern Europe? And for those who think that a nuclear
exchange is unthinkable it would be wise to consider the recent comments by Jack Keane of the aptly
named Institute for the Study of War, a leading neoconservative former general
who reportedly has the ear of the White House and reflects its thinking on the
matter. Keane is not hesitant to employ the military option against Pyongyang
and he describes a likely trigger for a U.S. attack to take out its nuclear
facilities or remove “leadership targets” as the setting up of a ballistic
missile in North Korea with a nuclear warhead mounted on top “aimed at
America.” Some observers believe that North Korea is close to having the
ability to reduce the size of its nukes to make that possible and, if Keane is
to be believed, it would be considered an “act of war” which would trigger an
immediate attack by Washington. And a counter attack by Pyongyang.
The claim of 97% reliability
for the U.S.’s anti-missile defenses is being challenged by Cirincione and
others, who argue that the United States can only “shoot down some…missiles
some of the time.” They make a number of arguments that are quite convincing,
even to a layman who has no understanding of the physics involved. I will try
to keep it simple. First of all, an anti-missile interceptor must hit its
target head on or nearly so and it must either actually strike the target or
explode its own warhead at a close enough distance to be effective. Both
objectives are difficult to achieve. An Intercontinental Ballistic Missile
(ICBM) travels at 5,000 meters per second. By way of comparison a bullet fired
from a rifle travels at about one fifth that speed. Imagine two men with rifles
standing a mile apart and firing their weapons in an attempt to have the
bullets meet head on. Multiply the speed by five if one is referring to
missiles, not bullets. Even using the finest radars and sensors as well as the
most advanced guidance technologies, the variables involved make it much more
likely that there will be a miss than a hit. Cirincione observes that “…the
only way to hit a bullet is if the bullet cooperates.”
Second, the tests carried
out by the Pentagon to determine reliability are essentially fraudulent.
Contrary to the Donald Trump comment, the 97% accuracy is an extrapolation
based on firing four anti-missile missiles at a target to make up for the fact
that in the rigged tests a single interceptor has proven to be closer to only
56% accurate, and that under ideal conditions. This statistic is based on the
actual tests performed since 1999 in which interceptors were able to shoot down
10 of 18 targets. The conclusion that four would result in 97% derives from the
assumption that multiple interceptors increases the accuracy but most engineers
would argue that if one missile cannot hit the target for any number of
technical shortcomings it is equally likely that all four will miss for the
same reason.
The tests themselves are
carefully scripted to guarantee success. They take place in daylight,
preferably at dusk to ensure maximum visibility, under good weather conditions,
and without any attempt made by the approaching missile to confuse the
interceptor through the use of electronic countermeasures or through the
ejection of chaff or jammers, which would certainly be deployed. The targets in
tests have sometimes been heated to make them easier to find and some have had
transponders attached to make them almost impossible to miss. As a result, the
missile interceptor system has never been tested under realistic battlefield
conditions.
Even the federal government
watchdog agencies have concluded that the missile
interception system seldom performs. The Government Accountability Office
concluded that flaws in the technology, which it describes as “failure modes,”
mean that America has an “interceptor fleet that may not work as intended,
prompting one Californian congressman John Garamendi to observe that “I think
the answer is absolutely clear. It will not work. Nevertheless, the momentum of
the fear…of the investments…[of] the momentum of the industry, it carries
forward.”
The Operational Test and
Evaluation Office of the Department of Defense has also been skeptical, reporting that the
GMD in Alaska and Hawaii has only “…a limited capability to defend the U.S.
Homeland from small numbers of simple intermediate range or intercontinental
ballistic missile threats launched from North Korea…the reliability and
availability of the operational [interceptors] are low.”
The dangerous
overconfidence being demonstrated by the White House over the ability to
intercept a North Korean missile attack might indeed be in some part a bluff,
designed to convince Pyongyang that it if initiates a shooting war it will be
destroyed while the U.S. remains untouched. But somehow, with a president who
doesn’t do subtle very well, I would doubt that to be the case. And the North
Koreans, able to build a nuclear weapon and an ICBM, would surely understand
the flaws in missile defense as well as anyone.
But the real danger is that
it is the American people that is being fooled by the Administration. War is
thinkable, even nuclear war, if one cannot be touched by it, a truism that has
enabled the sixteen-year- long and counting “global war on terror.” If that is
the message being sent by the White House, it would encourage further reckless
adventurism on the part of the national security state. Far better to take the
North Korean threat seriously and admit that a west coast city like Seattle
could well become the target of a successful nuclear weapon attack. That would
demonstrate that war has real life consequences and the unfamiliar dose of
honesty would perhaps result in a public demand to seriously negotiate with
Pyongyang instead of hurling threats in speeches at the United Nations and on
Capitol Hill.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D.,
is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax
deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S.
foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is www.councilforthenationalinterest.org,
address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.