Defending the homeland

In the process, he withdrew from the ABM treaty. That action caused Moscow to immediately abandon its long-delayed ratification of the 1993 START 2 treaty, which was to have been the nuclear equivalent of the CFE agreement, placing agreed limits on the long-range nuclear forces of both the US and Russia. A much watered-down treaty of doubtful effectiveness eventually took its place. As a consequence Russian mobile land-based ICBMs, which would have been decommissioned under START 2, now remain in service.

A further consequence was that Russia retained its multiple warhead (MIRV) missiles in service until 2016 (under START 2, they would have been phased out before 2003 and eliminated by 2007). About 190 missiles and many more nuclear warheads are involved.

The younger Bush version of the much-diminished Reagan fantasy is supposed to offer the US a defence against a few warheads launched either accidentally by an existing nuclear power, or deliberately by a “rogue state”. The threats cited by the US included Iraq - we know all about that now, don’t we? - Iran, and North Korea. The latter, of course, is now in the process of dismantling its nuclear program. That leaves just Iran.

I have written about Iran’s nuclear program in On Line Opinion before. But nobody thinks Iran has nukes at present, and the US cannot show that Iran is anywhere near having the ability to deliver a nuclear warhead (if it had one suitable) by missile to the US. In fact the Iranian missile program is still a long way short of such a goal - if indeed that is the Iranian goal - and many obstacles remain.

Consider two other points.

If a “rogue state” launches a missile at the US with, say, a nuclear warhead aboard, then whatever happens with that missile and its target, the United States will know almost in real time where the missile came from. This is so because the US has a sophisticated satellite network capable of detecting the launch site of any significant missile. In fact, Australia hosts an automated ground station for that network at Pine Gap near Alice Springs (the station used to be at Nurrungar near Woomera but when it was automated it was shifted to the already existing electronic intelligence station at Pine Gap).

If, therefore, an Iranian nuclear missile destroyed a US target, Iran would rapidly be identified as the source and would lie wide open to any level of nuclear response the Americans, probably half mad with grief and justified rage, chose to make.

In short, to attack the US with a nuclear missile - especially if you have little if any follow-up capacity - is to invite potential nuclear obliteration in return. This is the essence of deterrence: the cost of launching this kind of an attack can be as high as national suicide. Therefore, unless the regime in Teheran is actually suicidal, it would be deterred from attacking the US. “Missile Defense”, which probably won’t work, is unnecessary.

The difficulty of deploying a reliable missile defence is my second point. Ballistic missiles, and in particular their warheads, travel at speeds we measure in kilometres per second. For this reason the task of shooting one down with an anti-ballistic missile has been likened to hitting a bullet with a bullet, though bullets actually move far slower. The key point is this: to be successful, such a system must be perfect: not even one warhead can be allowed to reach its target. To my mind, construction of a perfect system is in the same league as an “unsinkable” ship (remember the Titanic?) or an “impregnable” fortress (remember Singapore in 1942?).

So, in pursuit of this unachievable “missile defense” fantasy, the much-decayed legacy of Reagan’s Star Wars gullibility, the Bush administration has itself destroyed one long-standing global arms control treaty (the ABM treaty) and provoked the Russians into abandoning another (START 2) and now into suspending a third (CFE). With Iraq, this destruction is indeed a fitting legacy to the neo-conservatives’ mad ideological fantasies.

It is noteworthy that in all of this, both the missile defence madness and of course the rape of Iraq, Bush has been loyally followed into the abyss by his little pet, John Howard. Thus Australia stands as an accomplice not just in the Iraqi disaster but in the ruin of a whole system of carefully constructed treaties intended to support global strategic stability. Gee Johnny, thanks a lot.