Protection Isn’t Protection

Protection Isn’t Protection

In 1975 I was the one of a few freshmen in an upper level political science course at Denison University, “Foreign Policy in the Twentieth Century.”  Its short title was “Bombs;”we were learning about the theory and application of nuclear warfare in our lives.  It was exciting, and scary, and we learned a lot about things like “acceptable losses” and “pre-emptive strikes” and the most important “mutual assured destruction, or MAD.”

In our final paper we had to take one aspect of nuclear warfare theory, and expound on its impact on our world.  I chose “deterrence theory,” the basis of all of our nuclear weapons.  It was pretty simple, if one nation uses a nuclear weapon, another nation would respond with a similar attack. Having weapons prevented others from attacking. I thought I wrote a great paper, typed carefully out on my electric typewriter, written on “onion skin” paper so that errors could be erased without having to use “correct-o-type.”  Doesn’t all of that sound like ancient technology now?

I was incredibly disappointed when I got the paper back, with a “B+” emblazoned on the front:  “B+,” that was an “A” paper for sure!  And that’s what the notation on the last page said, it was an “A” paper, but for one small flaw.  The note said – “…when writing a paper on deterrence theory, it is most important to spell ‘detterrence’ (sic) correctly.”   On the title page, on every page and in almost every paragraph, the critical word of the paper was in error.  You’d think I’d never forget that, but still today “spell-checker” is catching me, making det-ter-rence into de-ter-rence.

Deterrence theory made perfect sense in the 20^thCentury world.  Nuclear weapons were held by large nation-states, with lots to lose in a nuclear disaster.   The absolute destruction and millions of dead in the Soviet Union, and the United States and Europe, made the use of nuclear weapons truly horrifying.  The leaders of those nations, even though they did other despicable things, were unwilling to take that last step.  When they got close, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the multiple times that each got false alarms from their warning systems; their view of the abyss of nuclear destruction pushed them to negotiate rather than incinerate.

A decade after I graduated from Denison, US President Ronald Reagan pushed the limits of deterrence theory. He pressed for the development of a space based defense system, satellites that could stop enemy nuclear missiles, either by firing missiles at them, or by laser beams that would heat them beyond tolerance.  The laser beam thing caught on, and the project was nicknamed “Star Wars” after the George Lucas films.  

It seemed like a logical idea, though it turned out not to be scientifically possible at the time.  Build a “shield in space” that would stop a Soviet nuclear launch, destroying the majority of their all-out missile attack in the air.  Research into the project cost the US billions, but it also forced the Soviets to spend as much to keep up.

But to the nuclear theorists “Star Wars” was horrifying.  In their view, the end result of developing a successful “shield in space” had to be a nuclear attack.  The logic was pretty simple:  in a world of mutual assured destruction, the balance of weapons stopped their use. But if one nation would become invulnerable to attack, then the other nation HAD to attack before that invulnerability was in place.  If they didn’t, then the nation with effective space defense would be all-powerful, and the nation without would be at its mercy.  There was no deterrence.

Intentional or not, the attempted development of “Star Wars” forced the Soviet Union to try to keep up. That effort devastated their economy, and helped lead to its collapse.  Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the United States has left space-based defense alone.  We have developed various defense systems against slower moving “cruise” missiles, the most famous being the Patriot system used against Iraqi missiles during the Persian Gulf War.  We have recently worked at developing a more advanced system to “shoot down” Medium range and Inter-Continental missiles, called the THAAD system (Two Terminal High Altitude Area Defense.)   

THAAD is incredibly complex. A missile launch is detected from, say, North Korea.  The detection is made from Alaska, and the anti-missile missile is launched from an island in the Central Pacific (thus the two terminals.)   The anti-missile missile explodes on or near the attacking missile, somewhere high above the earth, stopping the attack.  It’s like a bullet is fired from one gun, and another bullet is aimed, fired, and hits the first bullet, except a whole lot harder and faster.  It works in some tests, but only so far with a single missile attack.

President Trump wants to spend billions more to increase our missile defense.  He also wants to layer space with satellites carrying sensors that can more easily detect missile launches, not just from outlier nations like North Korea or Iran, but also the new “hyper-sonic” low flying cruise-type missiles, with speeds of Mach 5 or more that can defeat all current missile defenses.  The United States, Russia, China, and France are working to develop these.

It all seems to make sense. Protect yourself in order to prevent attack.  But the problem remains the same as it did in the 1980’s; if it becomes clear that only one nation can protect itself, making others vulnerable, then it encourages those near-vulnerable nations to attack before it’s too late.  Even in the “hypersonic” missile field, deterrence is mutual. 

It’s more than rocket science.  It’s also the highest level of policy theory.  The United States may spend billions of dollars on defense, and do nothing more than trigger an attack.  Sometimes, protection isn’t protection at all.