Here's Kerry in May 2001 warning against terror attacks on our soil as the most likely threat.
Guest Commentary: May 14, 2001
Abandoning the ABM Treaty
Will Make Us More Vulnerable, Not Less
The Honorable John Kerry
While I agree that in principle we want to find alternative methods of being able to protect ourselves from the potential of nuclear blackmail or terrorism, the hard reality is that there will always be a measure of deterrence in any approach we find with respect to the prevention of attack or maintaining the security of the United States of America.
If there is a real potential of a rogue nation--and I underscore "if" there is a real potential of a rogue nation -- firing a few missiles at any city in the United States, responsible leadership requires the most thoughtful steps possible to prevent losses as a consequence thereof.
The same is true of accidental launch. If at some point in time, God forbid, there were to be an accidental launch of a nuclear missile, the notion that any country in the world, if technology were available, should be subject to that possibility would be unacceptable. All of us in the civilized world need to take steps to try to protect ourselves against the potential of that ever happening.
The rogue missile rationale that has been offered on many occasions really merits much greater analysis than many people have given it. For a state to develop a missile capacity, it would require some measure of testing, some measure of actual deployment, such as we have seen in North Korea with its Taepo Dong 2. It would also require a launch site and capacity, all of which are detectable by the United States, all of which are traceable over a period of time.
If, indeed, a state is to such a degree a rogue state that we think its leadership might be in a position of firing one or two rogue missiles at the United States, we ought to also think beyond that as to what they would be inviting as a response. Clearly, one or two missiles clearly traceable, obviously coming from a particular rogue state, would invite their annihilation.
So when we measure threats, we don't just measure capacity to be able to do something. We measure the intent to do something. We measure the consequences of somebody doing something. Indeed, Saddam Hussein, who possessed weapons of mass destruction, saw fit not to use those weapons of mass destruction when we went to war against him, even when he was losing the war. The reason that he didn't was because, Secretary Baker made it patently clear what would happen to them if they did.
Even the most unreasonable, most demonized of leaders still calculates risk and still calculates the repercussions of his actions.
Indeed, our military, in making a judgment about the different tiers of threat we face, places the threat of a rogue missile attack at the very bottom of threats the United States might face. ...
I say, with respect, that the President's efforts with respect to the rogue missile threat seem to be willing to do things to the ABM treaty, to our relationships with Russia and China that go well beyond what we could possibly gain in terms of our security.
Missile defense... is really only a response of last resort when diplomacy and deterrence have failed. I support research and development of a limited missile defense system that, indeed, might have the ability to knock down one or two incoming missiles. I think it would be, in fact, a step forward for the United States to be able to at least know that we have that capacity. ...
The ABM Treaty represents the conclusion of Republican and Democrat administrations alike that we need to find a way out of the continuing escalation of the arms race. That is why we put it in place. It gave us a guarantee that we knew we could begin to reduce weapons because neither side was going to upset this equilibrium. That is why China and Russia are so deeply upset at what we are now considering doing -- if we do it unilaterally. I am not against doing it if it is arrived at mutually. I want to research the capacity. I think there is a value to being able to say to New York City or Los Angeles, you are never going to be hit by a rogue missile or an accidental launch.
But what good is it if you deploy it in such a way that you abrogate the treaty that has held the balance and invite your adversaries to interpret it as the efforts of the United States to gain this superior edge, which then leads them into the same response -- the tit-for-tat syndrome that led us through the entire arms race in the first place?
That arms race is completely traceable. We were the first people to actually use an atom bomb. People forget that. We used it for a noble purpose -- to end the war and hopefully save lives. But we used it. After that, quickly Russia did an atom bomb. Then we did the hydrogen bomb. Russia did the hydrogen bomb. Then we did long-range bombers. They did long-range bombers. We put them on submarines, and they put them on submarines. In one -- maybe two -- instances, they beat us. With Sputnik, they beat us. In every other instance, the United States led. We were the first to put out the more sophisticated weaponry capacity.
But what happened? Inevitably immediately it may have taken we found ourselves in this race. The whole purpose of the SALT talks and the START talks -- now START I and START II -- where we have the capacity to lower from 7,200 weapons down to the 3,500, is the notion that we have arrived at an equilibrium and we are prepared to ratchet down together to make the world safer. ...
If we can get China and Russia and our allies to understand that a mutual deployment of a clearly verifiable, highly transparent system, mutually arrived at in protocol -- if we can deploy that, all of us together, with a clear understanding of the reductions we are seeking, that could be salutary in its extraordinarily limited way.
But if the United States insists on moving unilaterally, abrogating a treaty, we will send a message to already paranoid hardliners in other countries that the United States once again wishes to have technological superiority. That will drive them to respond as a matter of their security perception and as a matter of their politics, the same politics we have, where a bunch of people sit around and say: How can you allow them to do that? You are a weak leader. You had better respond. If you don't respond, you are going to be thrown out of office. And they respond. What happens? We wind up spending trillions of dollars on something that takes us to a place that we will ultimately decide is more dangerous than the place we are in today and from which we need to back off.
Sam Nunn and Dick, two of the most respected Senators, have led a well known effort to reduce the nuclear threat from the former Soviet Union. We had distinguished bipartisan testimony in the Foreign Relations Committee a few weeks ago that we need some $30 billion more than we are allocating now just to reduce the threat of the nuclear missiles we are trying to dismantle in the former Soviet Union. Yet we are talking about spending more than that to create a whole new round of mistrust and misunderstanding. ... Let me underscore that missile defense will do nothing to address what the Pentagon itself considers a much more likely and immediate threat to the American homeland from terrorists and from nonstate actors, who can quietly slip explosives into a building, unleash chemical weapons into a crowded subway, or send a crude nuclear weapon into a busy harbor.
What do you think is the more likely scenario? Do you really believe that North Korea will leave the trail of a missile, a targetable trail and send a missile to the United States, and like the sleeping giant that was awakened in Pearl Harbor, have us return the compliment, or do you believe if they were intent on doing injury to the United States, they would take a little bottle of anthrax and drop it in the water system in Washington, DC?
What do you think is more likely? Do you think it is more likely perhaps that some rogue nation might say: Wait a minute, they have the ability to knock down our missile, so let's put one of these illegally purchased weapons in the marketplace -- because we are not doing enough to stop proliferation internationally so they can go out and purchase a small nuclear weapon -- and they bring it in on a rusty freighter under the Verrazano Bridge, and detonate a nuclear weapon just outside New York City.
I would like to see us focus on those things that most threaten us, not create these notions of false threat that require us to debate for hours to stop something that does not necessarily promise a very positive impact for the long-term interests of our Nation. ...
I agree that the strategic situation we confront today is worlds apart from the one we faced in 1972, but nothing in this changed environment suggests that we will be better off by walking away from the ABM Treaty. If somehow Russia and China are not persuaded by President Bush's assurances that our missile defense system is not aimed at undermining their nuclear deterrent capabilities, and instead they perceive a growing threat to their interests, they will act to counter that threat. We will not be safer if our NMD system focuses their energies on developing -- and eventually selling -- new ways to overwhelm our defenses.
The ABM Treaty can be amended to reflect our changed security environment. But to abandon it all-together is to welcome an arms race that will make us more vulnerable, not less. ...
For 40 years, the United States has led international efforts to reduce and contain the danger from nuclear weapons. We can continue that leadership by exploiting our technological strengths to find a defense against ballistic missiles, and by extending that defense to our friends and allies. But we must not jeopardize stability in Europe and Asia by putting political ideology ahead of commitments that have kept us safe for decades. |
