While the US missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic have consistently made the news, few realize that other countries are equally interested in ballistic missile defense (BMD). Unsurprisingly, those are Japan, Israel and India (Russia to some extent).

And while Russia has the experience, expertise and technology to build some countermeasures, others do not. Therefore, when I read about Indian BMD, I wonder how Islamabad will react as they have a far smaller capacity to do so with most of their technology being Chinese or North Korean.

Buoyed by the successful testing of its fledgling ballistic missile defence, India is pushing ahead with an ambitious version of the star wars project capable of shooting down incoming ICBMs in the 5,000 km range. The phase-II of the BMD systems, likely to be deployed by 2014, will be an important part of India’s defence as both China and Pakistan possess nuclear capable missiles. Once the BMD is in place it will place India in a fairly exclusive club alongside US, Russia and Israel.

Even the possibility of effective BMD presents a major threat to Pakistan’s strategic weapons. Given that their warheads will be delivered by a combination of missiles and F16s, and that the Indian Air Force would likely intercept at least some of those planes, what are Pakistan’s options for countering India’s BMD program? They have neither the money or indigenous capabilities to develop their own, nor are they likely to find a country willing to sell them the technology. Even a partially successful Indian BMD program could have a major destabilizing effect on relations with Pakistan at a time when Pakistan is fighting for its very existence from internal threats.

Could this be the opening move towards a policy of engagement with Iran? I think so. According to Haaretz:

U.S. President-elect Barack Obama’s administration will offer Israel a “nuclear umbrella” against the threat of a nuclear attack by Iran, a well-placed American source said earlier this week. The source, who is close to the new administration, said the U.S. will declare that an attack on Israel by Tehran would result in a devastating U.S. nuclear response against Iran.

There can be no doubt in the minds of anyone that the United States would retaliate with nuclear weapons against Iran in the even of an Iranian nuclear attack. Additionally, there can be little doubt the Israelis would not retaliate if not with their ICBMs then with their nuclear armed submarines. With that in mind, there is no need for additional deterrence.

I see this as a move to pacify Israel and provide its leaders with a reason for not launching a preventative strike. With Israels government given cover, the next administration will be able to engage Iran diplomatically without the fear of an Israeli strike or pressure to resolve the issue by an Israeli given deadline. Readers?

One major and poorly explained reason for the invasion of Iraq was not the the physical presence of WMD but the willingness of a state with WMD capability and/or weapons to train and equip terrorists and possibly provide them with said weapons. While little serious diplomacy had been attempted with Iran and North Korea, Iraq showed itself time and again unwilling to cooperate. Additionally, it actively maintained WMD programs and was trying to both undermine and get the sanctions against it lifted.

The nexus between terror networks and rogue states is an issue poorly explained by the right and poorly understood by the left. Today’s further revelations about the A.Q. Khan network highlight why this is a very serious and very real threat. The Washington Post reports that

An international smuggling ring that sold bomb-related parts to Libya, Iran and North Korea also managed to acquire blueprints for an advanced nuclear weapon, according to a draft report by a former top U.N. arms inspector that suggests the plans could have been shared secretly with any number of countries or rogue groups.

[...] The A.Q. Khan smuggling ring was previously known to have provided Libya with design information for a nuclear bomb. But the blueprints found in 2006 are far more troubling, Albright said in his report. While Libya was given plans for an older and relatively unsophisticated weapon that was bulky and difficult to deliver, the newly discovered blueprints offered instructions for building a compact device, the report said. The lethality of such a bomb would be little enhanced, but its smaller size might allow for delivery by ballistic missile. “To many of these countries, it’s all about size and weight,” Albright said in an interview. “They need to be able to fit the device on the missiles they have.”

Both In addition to the obvious danger of other rogue regimes acquiring such information, it is currently unknown whether terrorists groups acquired any of the information. As the article notes, the design for a compact nuclear device in the hands of both rogue states or terrorists represents the clearing of a major hurdle allowing them to build weapons far easier to deploy than the clunky older designs.

While both rogue states and terror groups would surely like to acquire both a nuclear capability and weapons, each actor has a different set of advantages and disadvantages. States enjoy legitimacy (to varying extents) and international recognition, have sovereign territory and have a variety of reason and fear based national interests. Critically, states are also subject to deterrence through retaliation by sometims deterrence by denial (more here). Terror groups, on the other hand, have less power, resources and people than states do. Yet, terrorists are more difficult to deter by retaliation often lacking any clear target to retaliate against. In addition, some follow radical ideologies unrestrained by reason or straight up political goals.

While it wouldn’t have served the IRA’s interest to crash planes into London, it did serve al-Qaeda’s. And regarding nuclear terrorism, deterrence by denial is a far more difficult and costly option. Hence, an aggressive strategy against rogue states aims to both uncover, disrupt and neutralize threats, it also brings traditional deterrence to bear on potential collaborators with terrorists thereby deterring states not only from aiding terrorists but also motivating them to fight such networks themselves in the interest of their state’s and their own survival.

While details continue to slowly emerge, one thing remains certain, America’s breakup of Khan’s network and aggressive pursuit of rogue states and proliferaters has been an important unsung success of the Bush Administration which suffers from the typical dynamic that success means nothing happens.

On a side note, The Washington Institute has an article up discussing the strategic threat of nuclear terrorism (Hat Tip to Counterterrorism Blog).

As is common with most things dominating the news cycle, important background explanations and underlying principles are often if not always left inadequately answered or not touched on at all. One such example is the US missile shield which now has the official backing of NATO and the issue of Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. The missile shield involves several factors such as Iran and deterrence. Let us begin with the latter.

Deterrence is a military strategy, most famous for its importance during the Cold War between the United States and Soviet Union. In essence, the strategy aims to negatively influence the enemy’s decision to attack. This can be accomplished by two types of deterrence: deterrence or deterrence by denial. The first option threatens massive retaliation against the enemy in the event of an attack while the second one seeks to make the achievement of the enemy’s goal so difficult as to be not worthwhile. The first method is most famous as the basis of MAD, mutually assured destruction.

There are several problematic assumptions with deterrence, regardless of whether we speak of its use during the Cold War or today. First of all, its usefulness is based on the assumption that enemy actors are rational and make rational decisions. It also does not allow for flaws in the decision making process, both technical and human as well as rogue influence in the decision making process of enemy states. Lastly, it does not necessarily allow for errors or misunderstandings in the diplomatic process.

However, while it is often easy to look back on the Cold War with a sense of nostalgia because it at least seems to black and white compared to today, the same issues existed at that time and nevertheless worked. Stalin, one of history’s greatest mass-murderers was extremely paranoid and would be hard to characterize as a rational actor, yet here we are today. As recently unclassified documents about deterrence in the post-Cold-War era notes “The very framework of a concept that depends on instilling fear and uncertainty in the minds of opponents was never, nor can it be, strictly rational. Nor has it ever required strictly rational adversaries to function.”

This leaves us with three remaining issues, that of the missile shield, Iran, and terrorists. The missile shield being built by the US, and now supported by NATO, primarily serves to defend Europe and later the US against nuclear attacks by rogue nations such as Iran or North Korea. While it may indeed have the potential for dual use, i.e. offensive use and brings up issues of nuclear primacy and first strike capability, let us focus on its relevance to non-Russian threats.

While all sides of the American political spectrum spar over whether Iran is deterable and whether the US and/or Israel should allow Tehran to acquire a nuclear capability, deterrence and its history makes clear that one does not necessarily need rational actors leading enemy states to properly function. Deterrence through massive retaliation aims not only to make the result of a cost-benefit analysis of attacking a clear negative, it also aims to instill fear and uncertainty. Hitler, for example, who was in possession of chemical weapons would clearly have had no qualms about using them against the Russians. However,

“[...] he knew that both Roosevelt and Churchill had stated categorically that any use of chemical weapons by German armed force would be met with retaliation in kind, and that the retaliation could well be directed against German industrial centers. Allied long-range bomber forces were already conducting bombing raids on a scale which made credible the threat that the destruction would be greatly escalated should chemical weapons be introduced. Fearing retaliation and its consequences for the German war-supporting industries, Hitler did not use chemical weapons.”

Thus it is no less probable that a nuclear armed Iran would be deterable in the same way both Nazi Germany and the USSR were. This leaves us, however, with the possibility of rogue influence (i.e. a rogue commander or other individual), a flawed decision making process (a technical error such as in the case of Stanislav Petrov) or some diplomatic error or misunderstanding. The missile shield is a hedge against these possibilities and is thus an important addition to US deterrence and by extension defense policy.

In conclusion, Iran and other such rogue states as North Korea or Syria are indeed deterable. Radical terrorists, however, are another story and as Keith Payne, who recently spoke at John’s Hopkins noted, some are and others are not. But that is another post for another day.