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Battlefield of the Future: New Era Warfare
by Charles A. Horner
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Battlefield of the Future
Chapter 2
New-Era Warfare
Gen Charles A. Horner, USAF (Ret.)
In the twenty-first century we are going to confront increasingly the
threat of ballistic missiles and the need for ballistic-missile
defenses.
The threats posed by ballistic missiles are obvious. Many nations
now have them, and not all those nations are high- tech. There is
also no doubt about the fact that the capabilities of ballistic
missiles are increasing. Former CIA Director Woolsey, for
example, noted that North Korea has developed three new ballistic
missiles.
But our real problem is not so much the threat itself, but a lack of
understanding about what is the threat. The military missed the
whole point in Desert Storm. We used to look upon ballistic
missiles in terms of warhead size and accuracy- circular error
probability and the like-and calculate the warhead's impact on the
enemy, but we missed the real impact of the ballistic missile.
Part of the reason for this misunderstanding is simply our heritage.
All of us here today have lived the majority of our adult lives
during the cold war, which caused us to look at things in strategic
terms; that is, in the context of US/Soviet relations. We still argue,
for example, about the futility of having ballistic missile defenses
because it's bad to defend against mutual assured destruction. But
many of our views on ballistic missiles, couched in the obsolete
terms of the cold war bipolar world, are not appreciated by much of
the world today. That is particularly true of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain,
and Israel.
There is also a history we can refer to regarding the use of ballistic
missiles, and I was puzzled during Desert Storm that we didn't
seem to be aware of that history. Ballistic missiles were used
against Rotterdam and London in World War II. After the Gulf
War, I was watching a story about our stealth fighter, the F-117.
The person largely responsible for the stealth technology on the F-
117 is an Englishman who had grown up in London during WWII.
He said, "I recall the terrorizing impact of the V-2 attacks. They
were far more fearsome than bomber attacks." So the lesson was
there that ballistic missiles can have a large psychological impact as
well as a military impact on a war, but we had failed to learn that
lesson. The ballistic missile had a profound impact on the coalition
nations in Desert Storm, on our forces, and on our understanding of
the ballistic missile's own utility. The ballistic missile was the only
advantage that Saddam Hussein had in that war. That's the lesson
that Saddam taught us, that ballistic missiles may have little
military value but do have great terror potential.
Ballistic missiles and ballistic-missile defense carry heavy political
implications. For example, if we have no money to spend on
conventional defense, we tell our people that it doesn't matter,
because we have ballistic missiles, and that since defenses against
missiles are destabilizing, it is not even in our best interests to
spend money on a defense against them.
But in reality ballistic missiles are with us, and the capability for
launching them is growing. Technology transfers, a technology
revolution occurring every 18 months to two years, as well as
legitimate space launches, are things we need to be concerned
about in this regard. In today's world there is no reason why any
nation can't put a communications satellite into space. That same
capability for launching satellites can be transformed, with proper
guidance, into a ballistic missile of intercontinental range. Other
technologies enhance this delivery capability, such as our Global
Positioning System (GPS), which gives nations the ability to target
with some degree of accuracy without having to go through the
same costly and intense development that we had to go through to
get that system operational. There are also many nations that are
willing to use ballistic missiles. Iraq, Yemen, and Afghanistan are
all examples. We've seen testing on the part of Vietnam, Korea,
and Syria, and they are seen as necessary for defense by countries
such as Saudi Arabia and Israel. Certainly, there are opportunities
we can foresee for countries such as Libya and North Korea to use
ballistic missiles; and they are the cornerstone of defense for the
United States and Russia, and also for countries such as India and
Pakistan.
The world has changed, and the capability exists for many
countries to use ballistic missiles. If you put these facts together
with other big shifts, such as the decline in nation- state status, and
new stresses such as international migration and environmental
degradation, we must understand that the world is changing.
Certainly there are new strategies being pursued. There is no doubt,
for example, that many states are pursuing a strategy of acquiring
weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them. This is
the war that is replacing the cold war.
Lessons of Desert Storm
So let me turn to Desert Storm because it illustrated this revolution
in warfare. First, look at this example. At a Camp David meeting in
September 1990, before the Gulf War began, President Bush asked:
"How do we avoid casualties? At first, I thought he was referring to
US casualties, and then I thought he meant casualties of all the
possible allies, but as he continued to speak I realized he was
talking about the Iraqis. He was asking how we could conduct this
military operation with minimum casualties on both sides. That is
part of new-era warfare.
There's no doubt that casualties in modern warfare-at least from
our point of view-are quite unacceptable. If the casualty count is
too high, you can win the war on the battlefield yet lose it at home
because you inflicted large numbers of casualties on the enemy or if
they inflicted large numbers of casualties on you. Both are
unpopular with the US public.
How did we carry out ballistic missile defense (BMD) in Desert
Storm? The answer is, we were ill-prepared, though we did prepare
to some extent. In 1988 in an exercise under Gen George Crist
(commander-in-chief of Central Command), Army Brig Gen Jim
Ellis was given free play as a Red Force commander. He was
supposed to challenge us. The scenario was that the Russians
attacked through Iran and we had to defend. What Jim Ellis did was
to keep firing ballistic missiles into my area. Every time I'd mass
my force, he would send a couple of ballistic missiles at us. It's a
war game, but I'll tell you, pretty soon you get a little tired because
you want to be a hero in front of your boss, and this brigadier
general was not cooperating at all. But he did us a great service by
making us aware of the military utility of these weapons.
In another exercise in July, 1990, the scenario was that Country
Orange was going to attack Kuwait and Saudi Arabia from the
north, and we knew Country Orange probably had ballistic
missiles. I said, "We're not going to be unprepared again." So I
went down to see Lt Gen John Yeosock, commander, Third US
Army, who was the ground force commander, and I told him that I
wanted to use the Patriots to defend against ballistic missiles.
At that time, Patriot was believed to have the capability to intercept
ballistic missiles, so I took the Patriot air defense circle and put it
on my maps. When we plotted those circles, they just about covered
the map. Of course, we learned in Saudi Arabia that the Patriot
ballistic missile defense circle looks more like the head of a pin.
We have all heard a lot of very smart people talk about whether the
Patriot missiles were or were not a success in Desert Storm. I can
only tell you that I had to make a decision about whether or not to
move the E-3 AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System)
aircraft out of Scud range. They were positioned at Riyadh Air
Base and Saddam was shooting Scuds at them. I had to decide
whether to leave them there or move them to Thumrait, which
would have put another hour or hour-and-a-half between them and
their operational area. I decided to leave them at Riyadh and,
because of the Patriot missiles, we didn't lose a single AWACS.
That was either a brilliant decision or a very lucky one, I don't
know. But I do know that from where I stood, the Patriots worked.
After the initial Scud launchings, we saw the value of the Patriots
and of defense against ballistic missiles in general. There can be no
doubt about the value of these antiweapon interceptors. Consider
that the greatest number of casualties came from one Scud attack on
the Dhahran barracks.
This could prove to be a lesson not lost on other nations in terms of
the terror caused by ballistic missiles and the political leverage they
provide. Suppose Iran, for example, had nuclear weapons and
ballistic missiles, and suppose they decided that they wanted to
raise the price of oil, and they tell their neighbors that they are
going to deny them and every other nation access to the Red Sea.
They say to the Saudis, "You know we have these weapons, but
we're not interested in occupying your country, nor are we
interested in crossing into it; we just want to get the price of oil
back to where we can make some money." What would be the
reaction of the Saudis?
And finally, it's reasonable to believe that the development and
proliferation of ballistic missiles in the hands of potential
adversaries has reached a stage where they can affect such things as
the building and maintaining of coalitions. For example, what if we
were involved in a situation like Desert Storm, where an ally like
Italy, for example, was threatened with such a missile attack?
Would other neighboring countries, also within range, dare to ally
themselves with Italy or the United States? How difficult would it
be to hold together a coalition as diverse as the one we had in
Desert Storm if the member nations were threatened with direct
missile attack?
Status of Ballistic Missile Defense Programs
Where are we today with respect to ballistic missile defense? We
have the defense guidance on theater, national, and technology
demonstrations, and we have the ABM Treaty, which is the most
significant element at the policy level. The ABM Treaty made sense
in a cold war context, but you wonder if it has merit in the new
world. So far as our current capability is concerned, warning of
long-range missiles is provided by space-based infrared sensors and
radars. But we should keep in mind that our radars are configured
for the cold war. Although we can change that fact, as of now our
infrared systems for theater defense have limited detection
capability. They have difficulty with land masses far away from the
equator, with weather, and with the smaller infrared signature of
missiles like the Scud. The biggest problem with our current radars
and space-based sensors, however, is that they do not allow us to
target and attack mobile launchers. That was one lesson I brought
back from Desert Storm, and it is the one I keep hitting over and
over and over.
We have made some progress since then. We have modified the
software associated with the Defense Support Program (DSP)
signal. We can take two or more satellites and interweave their
coverage to improve accuracy and the likelihood of detection. But
they still do not offer the degree of certainty that I think is needed
and wanted. Other countries have offered us the use of their some
of their warning assets. For example, the head of the Ukrainian Air
Forces asked me, "How would you like to have some of our
ballistic-missile radar gear, left over from the cold war?" But we
looked at its location and decided we were not interested because it
really had no potential military benefit. Of course, the Ukrainians
are trying to get close to the United States to preclude being
overpowered by the Russians. Among those most interested in our
ballistic missile warning capabilities, and how they can be shared,
are our allies. The long-term program that I think would be most
effective in this respect is called ALARM. It gives us the ability to
see lower signature missiles and it gives us the ability to see
missiles that are coasting, for example. Finally, ALARM gives us
responsiveness, in that it will be on a smaller launch vehicle and
maybe on other satellites.
We need to be concerned about keeping our warning capabilities
effective. For example, a DSP satellite went bad last year, so I said
launch the spares. I thought it might take 90 days to do this. It turns
out that it takes considerably longer. In some cases, it can take up
to two years to replace a warning satellite.
The United States can count on our offensive missiles, but we have
to think in depth. Too often the nature of our acquisition system
forces us into being too programming oriented. We must think not
in terms of the single solution but in a variety of solutions. For
instance, we wanted to attack Iraq's missiles where they were built,
before they were on the launch pads. That would have been the
most productive approach. We have the capability to do that, but
we did not do a very good job at finding and destroying Iraq's
missiles in Desert Storm because we really had not thought
sufficiently about the problems beforehand.
After the war, I asked several questions about the command and
control of Iraq's systems, and we found out that we could have
done some things to improve our missile defense efficiency. For
example, launch orders in Iraq tended to come from a very high
level, so there were vulnerabilities that could have been exploited.
In general, we need to consider the three areas of missile defense:
boost-phase, midcourse and terminal. We have other capabilities,
such as JOINT STARS, GPS, and multitarget detection, but I think
most of us want to talk about what happens after missiles are
launched.
Boost-Phase Intercept
During the Gulf War, we had the potential for an intercept of a
Scud just after launch. An F-16 was over Iraq suppressing Scuds,
and the pilot saw a missile coming off the pad. He thought it was a
SAM being shot at him, so he made a move away from it. He then
realized that there was no radar warning and that the missile was
very bright and large for a SAM. When he realized it was a Scud,
not a SAM, he attempted to shoot it down with an AIM-9 heat-
seeking missile. But the high rate of acceleration of the Scud was
too much for the F-16.
Boost-phase is a good time to intercept a missile because its
signature is high, it's at its slowest speed, it's vulnerable, and if
you get it then, it falls on the enemy-a beautiful thing. The
problem is having the time to detect and launch on it. The timeline
on a boost-phase intercept is very, very tight. Still, there are many
options for boost-phase defense. You can get airplanes to cap an
attack, as we did during the Gulf War. You can have protection
from large airplanes if you want to use an airborne laser, for
example. There are also options for putting unmanned airplanes up
for long periods of time. We need to work on the boost-phase
intercept issue, but right now it has been hampered. We have three
boost-phase programs that I know of, all on airplanes: HARM,
AMRAAM, and the airborne laser. But I think that the current
budget crisis will probably keep these programs from being
acquired and deployed. That we have been taking funds from these
programs tells us more about our own lack of perception of the
seriousness of the threat than it does about the threat itself.
Midcourse Intercept
The advantage of a midcourse intercept is that during this period
the missile has a good signature because it's out there in a sterile,
space environment and you have multiple opportunities to shoot at
it. Also, if you go to space-based systems for intercept in mid-
course, you get wide-area protection; you can cover larger portions
of the landmass depending on how many of these interceptor
platforms and sensor satellites you want to put in orbit. Of course,
the big down-draw on anything in space is the ABM Treaty, and
the widely held attitude that we should not have weapons in space.
My answer to that is that the weapon in space is the warhead on a
missile. The interceptor is an antiweapon. Therefore I don't have
the same philosophical problems. Parenthetically, I'm not in favor
of weapons in space.
There are still other options for midcourse defense against ballistic
missiles. The Navy Upper Tier is one, because it gives you a great
deal of flexibility. You can park these ships anywhere. If we
deployed this system you could have a national missile defense by
stationing them as far away as Hudson Bay. But again, midcourse
intercept requires midcourse guidance, and that involves sensors in
space which track cold bodies and relay that data to the intercept
missile, and that is prohibited by the ABM Treaty.
Terminal-phase Intercept
Finally, we have terminal defense, where most of our work is now
done. The most logical elements would be development of an
improved Patriot; Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), a
ground-based system by the Army; and/or Navy Lower Tier.
However, I worry about this. Will these ground-based systems
address the future threat? Too often, when people approve building
a theater missile defense, they are talking about building a missile
defense against a benign nonthreat, a Scud-like threat. Remember,
the Scud wasn't even good enough for Saddam. Even if we deploy
one of these systems- such as THAAD-we still need a cold-body
tracker in space. If I'm sitting here with my THAAD missile and
somebody launches a ballistic missile at me, I still need very
definite data as to where that missile is so that I can launch my
THAAD before knowing where it's aimed. So warning is not
enough- we need to have accurate information about where the
missile is. A cold-body tracker doubles the range of your ground-
based or ship-based systems. But again, to deploy that tracker
requires ABM Treaty changes.
Need for a Robust TMD
The technology for building effective ballistic missile defenses is
available today. The dollars have been spent, and countries are
clamoring for ballistic missile defenses. I believe that we must be
concerned about what kind of ballistic-missile defenses we're
allowed to build. Those concerns have to be voiced, or else we will
wind up with a noneffective system against fair-to-reasonable
threats. If space systems can give us the capability we need to
defend our men and women when they are overseas, let alone
defend the United States, then we need to seek that. If that means
we need to work with the Russians to change the ABM Treaty,
that's what we need to do.
Let's talk about the ABM Treaty. I believe the ABM Treaty is a
cold war hang-over. is the cold war over? If you look at the defense
budget, the cold war is over. What's more, I've had visits from the
head of the KGB, and Col General Ivanov, head of Russia's rocket
forces. We're talking with them about shared exercises; I've been
invited to Moscow. Given all this, I think it's reasonable to assume
that the cold war is over- and, therefore, I think the ABM Treaty
has outlived its usefulness.
That does not mean that we and the Russians are not going to have
tensions, conflict, disagreements, and competition. But, I think that
things have fundamentally changed between our two countries. Yet
we still have ballistic missiles pointed at each other. To what end?
We are not going to fight each other. So, it's now a question of
how we walk away from the cold war, not do we walk away from
the cold war.
In walking away from the cold war, one area we must investigate is
shared ballistic missile defenses with the Russians. That requires
building trust with the Russians. Nor is it an easy thing to do since
they are still coming from a bipolar world view, and I think that
they are genuinely concerned about our ability to outstrip them in
technology. They want to be in the driver's seat in determining how
we march forward on ballistic missile defenses, and the ABM
Treaty gives them the leverage to do that. I ran into this problem
with Ivanov. We were at the national test facility, which is an
impressive operation, and we were briefed by people from our
Ballistic Missile Defense Organization. You could see that General
Ivanov, who is a very thoughtful, intelligent, and tough guy, was
threatened. He looked as if he were thinking, "My God, I didn't
know they were this good."
I knew we were going to reach this point, so I had spoken with him
all morning about how could we cooperate with him. "What we
need to do," I said, "is work together on this. We need to share
these technologies. You have things that we can't match, like
heavy-lift access to space. There's a marriage right there-our
technology in ballistic missiles and your access to space to put
things in orbit. There's no reason our two countries can't work
together, other than the fact that there are those in both of our
capitals who are still very close to the cold war." And he said,
"What is your problem in achieving this technology?" I said, "Well,
it's the budget. We have to fight for these programs before our
Congress." When he went to get on the airplane to leave, he turned
and said, "Good luck with your Congress." In both Washington and
Moscow there are people who are still operating in a cold war
context. I think the Russians are terrified that we are going to get
ahead of them in ballistic missile defenses. So, it is very important
that we do things, such as share ballistic-missile warning as an
entree, and then become involved in shared ballistic-missile
defenses. At that point, the ABM Treaty is moot.
How you build trust with the Russians is a matter of a lot of effort,
discussion, and dialogue. But I think to approach it from the cold
war standpoint is the wrong tack. I think we must approach it
looking at things through their eyes as they look to the south, not
over the pole. I have no doubts that the Russians are quite willing
to do that, given time.
The biggest problem we have is our own lack of understanding of
the threat. I'm amazed by that. Many people come to Cheyenne
Mountain where we show them the ballistic missile warning
systems. Then we ask them, "What do you think of our ballistic
missile defenses?" I would estimate that 60 percent of the people
say, "They have got to be the finest in the world, and we can't
thank you enough." But the truth is we have none.
That is a scary thing-they don't know. The danger here is that if
we are threatened by ballistic missiles someday, the American
people are going to feel betrayed. So, I think that, while we have no
threat for now, we must communicate to the American people that
they do not in fact have ballistic missile defenses, and that there is
a potential for them at some point in the future to be attacked.
Shared Defense Against Ballistic Missiles
What do we need to do? First, recognize that the world has
changed; second, recognize that the cold war is over; and, finally,
recognize that we and the Russians have much to gain from getting
rid of our nuclear arsenals. Think about this: the nation most
threatened by the proliferation of missiles and weapons of mass
destruction is Russia. They are surrounded by North Korea, China,
Pakistan, India, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Ukraine, and all
these states have nuclear weapons or nuclear-weapons programs,
and all have ballistic missiles or ballistic-missile programs. Russia
needs ballistic missile defenses more than does the United States.
Why do we not start the process by sharing warning, and as we
build trust, then sharing defenses?
What's the cost of sharing warning, for example? It means we give
up the opportunity to attack them on a surprise basis. We have
people who are fighting shared warning, but I think their arguments
are based on cold war fears, not on the world we find today. I think
that we have to recognize this world is a dangerous place in many
areas, and that proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the
means to deliver them are the true threat that we need to be
addressing. Diplomacy is best, and we have nonproliferation
regimes, which we need to pursue. But there are determined
adversaries out there who are not deterrable by counterforce
because, if they are smart at all, they know that we are not going to
use nuclear weapons.
What are nuclear weapons good against? They are good against
cities. Are we going to bomb the capital of some country in order to
deter them from using nuclear weapons? They know we are not
going to do that. Now, we do have sufficient conventional military
strength, and particularly with a coalition as in the Gulf War, we
can be effective on the battlefield. But if there is a question about
our national will, then it's in some nation's interest to build these
weapons of mass destruction and threaten people.
We must be credible on the basis of conventional defense. In
Desert Storm, Saddam Hussein had more chemical weapons than I
could bomb. We had to make a decision to go after the production
areas and those storage areas that were in the immediate area of the
battlefield. I could not have even begun to take out all of his
chemical storage-there are just not enough sorties in the day.
Although Iraqi had abundant chemical weapons, they did not use
them in Desert Storm. We interrogated their people as to why this
was so. I thought perhaps it was a concern that we might retaliate
with nuclear weapons, and certainly we made things ambiguous in
that regard. But the Iraqi generals reported the reason they didn't
use chemical weapons was because if they used them, they knew
our troops were better protected than their troops. They felt that if
they used chemical weapons, they would suffer many more
casualties than we would.
I think that they were right in their assessment, and I think that it
highlights the importance of defenses being a key element in
deterrence. If you have ballistic missile defenses, then that makes
another country's acquiring ballistic missiles less important, and in
fact, may deter them from spending large amounts of money to
build them.
Our allies and neutral nations would benefit greatly if we had wide-
area ballistic-missile defenses. For example, suppose we had the
capability to share ballistic missile defenses on a global basis, say a
space-based system. You could go to a country such as Israel-
which I believe has nuclear weapons- and say, "If you get rid of
your nuclear weapons, we'll share ballistic missile defenses with
you." Or suppose we went to India and Pakistan and said, "Look,
we understand that you don't like each other, we understand that
you are both relying on ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons to
deter one another, and that if you have a war, there is liable to be a
nonrational decision which causes one or the other or both to use
these weapons. The problem is, we live downwind, and we don't
like it. So, while you may want to use these systems, we're not
going to let you. We are going to preclude you from doing that, at
least to the extent we can, by using our ballistic missile defenses to
interfere with any missile attack that takes place." I think that use
of active defenses can be as important as using ballistic missile
defenses in the direct defense of our own nation.
Consider this: The former head of the Japanese Air Force, General
Ishizuka, and I have talked for hours about the challenges in
defending against possible missile attacks, because it is a subject of
very high concern in Japan. The military leadership in Japan is very
concerned about ballistic-missile defense. One of their concerns is
that their people, or elements of their population, will lose
confidence in the United States as the protector of their security,
and they are apprehensive about what effect that might have. If the
Japanese decide they must go their own way, and renounce their
constitution and develop a very aggressive outreach in military
capability, what would that do to the whole Pacific Rim, or to the
countries that well remember WWII? So, it's important that we
have the ability to share ballistic missile defenses with a country
like Japan.
Working with the Russians, the Japanese, and others will also
affect the Chinese. The number of warheads the Chinese have is
significant in terms of inflicting pain, but in terms of attacking
Russia or the United States, they are probably not decisive. The
Chinese are pragmatic, so you can work with them if you
understand what their internal concerns are, such as control of the
Chinese border. So I think that over the long term, if you ignore
them in this regard and work with the Russians, the Japanese and
countries like that, you can then say to the Chinese, "By the way,
we're going to neutralize your ballistic missiles."
Does it mean we'll have peace? No, I don't think so. I think you
have to ask yourself this one question: "Would it be a better world
if we had ballistic missile defenses and no nuclear weapons, or
nuclear weapons and no ballistic-missile defenses?" I think that
this is the choice, and I think that is where we need to have the
vision and the courage to take on this mission of ballistic missile
defense in new-era warfare.
Reducing Nuclear Arsenals
One of the greatest potential benefits of ballistic missile defense-
especially shared warning and wide-area defenses- is in reducing
the value of nuclear ballistic missiles. There is a significant
domestic value here as well, but the costs of developing, deploying,
and operating such defenses are not trivial. In fact, in the current
budget environment, you can't expect the military to take the lead.
But I think ballistic missile defenses would compete very well,
particularly if you trade them off against the cost of maintaining
nuclear- weapons forces.
Our nuclear-weapons forces are not trivial in terms of cost. The Air
Force has got to come to grips with relinquishing the ICBMs. We
just put three black boxes on each one of the Minutemen, at a
million dollars a box. The cost to the Navy operating the Trident
submarines is certainly not trivial. What are we going to have to do
when we have to replace the tritium? Are we going to restart the
Savannah River Project? So, I think if you worked a trade-off one
against the other you could probably free up a great deal of money.
There is another argument made by those who cling to cold war
ideas, and that is that we need to maintain our nuclear weapons to
deter other nations. These people point to the proliferation of the
technologies for weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear
weapons, and worry that without our own nuclear arsenals we will
be ripe for attack. But does our nuclear deterrent force really limit
the threat posed by the proliferation of such weapons? Such
weapons might be delivered by a variety of means. Aircraft and
missiles carrying such weapons might not be the only threat. Those
attempting to smuggle nuclear weapons into the United States
might do so in a manner that is not traceable. But even if we
identified the culprits, we would probably not be able to use a
nuclear weapon against them. Nonetheless, we ought to have the
conventional military power to be able to influence them on a
deterrable basis.
In other words, the question is, are we being well-served if, as we
cut our military forces down, we reserve large amounts of money to
preserve weapons we probably cannot employ, as opposed to
acquring more very capable conventional forces? If a nation uses a
nuclear weapon or poison gas against us, then we must have
military options to take-and strong conven- tional forces provide
those options.
So, you have two problems: deterrence, and what do you do if
deterrence fails. Anybody who would poison Chicago is
nondeterrable, because they are not operating on our same logic
train. Therefore, I think that some potential aggressors that are
indifferent to whether we have nuclear weapons or not. I believe
Saddam Hussein, in many ways, was indifferent to nuclear
weapons. In fact, sometimes I wonder if he really was not looking
for Israel to throw a nuclear weapon at him. So, the idea of using
US nuclear weapons to deter an adversary is probably only useful
with reference to the Russians. That's what I believe.
However, let me be clear on this. We cannot-we must not-
unilaterally disarm. You must do it in concert with the Russians,
and you must have a vision. But we seem to lack vision, and to be
in a reactive mode, which precludes long-term planning. What we
mean by long-term is really a function of perception of threat, of
building trust with Russia. I would not suggest that we can walk
away from nuclear deterrence other than arm-in-arm with the
Russians. There is an opportunity to let other nations have nuclear
arsenals and yet work with them on a business-like basis. I
personally am not threatened by England and France having nuclear
weapons, or even Israel. I think China also tends to fall in that
category. Nuclear disarmament has to be worked in terms of the
Russia/US relationship.
Maintaining Conventional Strength
It is absolutely essential that we maintain US conventional military
strength-the type of conventional strength that we exhibited in
Desert Storm. I think that we are approaching what I call the
dominance of defense. The thing that scares me, of course, is the
French reached that conclusion in 1930. I see so little value in
warfare.
For example, in Saddam Hussein's case, I am not sure that we
missed the boat in not dethroning him. If I were somebody living in
Baghdad, what threatens me most are the Kurds and the Shiites. So,
while I might hate Saddam Hussein for what he does to my family,
my economy, and my nation, an Iraqi might believe that he is the
one person who was keeping me alive. If I were a Kuwaiti, I would
hate the Iraqis for what they did to my children and my country, but
on the other hand, I'm not sure I would want Iran on my northern
border either.
Probably the mistake we made was in our publicity during the Gulf
War, which demonized Saddam Hussein. He is a gangster and an
evil person. But in the Vietnam War, we became very involved in
the internal affairs of South Vietnam to our disadvantage, and I
think the thing we were all concerned about was getting involved in
solving the problems of Iraq, when Iraq's problems are not solvable.
So, in my opinion, if the Iraqis want Saddam, they can elect him,
let him try to run Iraq, but Saddam and Iraq would be very wise not
to step over the boundary lines again.
Of course that's fine, if Saddam Hussein is just a modest risk taker.
But if you are faced with a dictator who in fact runs risks, a
defense-only capability may not be an adequate US military
posture. We also should have a very credible conventional military
capability.
I think we also have to remember that each war is different. We are
ill-prepared for things like Bosnia or Somalia, and there are those
who want to build forces for that. We fight a Desert Storm only
every 10 or 15 years. But, I think the point is that you've got to be
able to fight the Desert Storms successfully, and obviously
counterforce is necessary. I'm not sure what the campaign against
Iraq's economy achieved. But basically, our goal was to eject Iraq
from Kuwait and cripple Iraq's nuclear/biological/chemical
capabilities, and I do believe we did have an impact. We went after
leadership, and we went after it in a military context, not in a
political context. Since Saddam was the top Iraqi military leader, it
would have been nice if we had gotten him, but only because he
was their top military figure, not because he was their president.
Conclusions
The fundamental point is clear: the United States and its allies must
pursue ballistic missile defenses. Ballistic missile defenses are the
key to new era warfare-to opportunities for reducing nuclear
arsenals and to ensuring the type of conventional strength that
enables the United States to secure its interests in the future. As far
as I am concerned, it is simply time to get on with it.
Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those
of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic
environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official
position of the US Government, Department of Defense, the United
States Air Force or the Air University.
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