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 he defection of
Sen. Jim Jeffords from the Republican party spells trouble for most
of President Bush's agenda. That
is particularly true in one area: His commitment to defend the American
people, their forces, and allies overseas against ballistic-missile
attack.
The immediate problem is that Senators Jesse Helms and John Warner
will, respectively, turn over the gavels of the Senate Foreign Relations
and Armed Services Committees to their Democratic counterparts,
Senators Joseph Biden and Carl Levin. That transfer of power means
that Mr. Bush will no longer be able to count on two pivotal committees
being led by legislators who share his sense of urgency about ending
America's present, absolute vulnerability to missile strikes. Now,
these committees will fall into the hands of senators who have been
the most indefatigable and effective opponents of previous efforts
aimed at ending that vulnerability.
Left to their own devices, Messrs. Biden and Levin will do everything
in their power to preserve the status quo. In Washington, few things
are easier than resisting change. And what President Bush is proposing
to do — end the impediment to the deployment of effective missile
defenses posed by the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, signed
in 1972 with the Soviet Union, and initiate deployments impermissible
under that accord — will require him to overcome immense inertia.
Even before they became chairmen, both senators impeded the confirmation
of some of President Bush's appointees who will be responsible for
missile defense and arms-control policy in the State and Defense
Departments. Once they assume their chairmanships, it is a safe
bet that they and their staffs will work assiduously to interfere
with the Bush administration's missile-defense policies and programs
as well.
If the President is serious about deploying effective missile defenses,
he will not be able to get there by accommodating, appeasing, or
trying to compromise with the likes of Senators Biden and Levin.
Adopting such an approach (as is so often the case with conventional
opinion) is wrong. These legislators share an ideological commitment
to the ABM Treaty and the arms-control house of cards built upon
it. They may, for tactical reasons, choose to conceal their antipathy
to anti-missile programs at variance with that accord, but they
will never willingly agree to approve or otherwise legitimize such
programs.
Instead, Mr. Bush's only hope of realizing his goal of defending
America against missile attack is to throw down the gauntlet. As
William Kristol put it in an op-ed article in today's Washington
Post: "Bush will have no choice but to follow Reagan's example.
He will have to show that on a few key issues he can use the bully
pulpit to strike fear into Democratic hearts. Any successful president
needs to be not just liked but also feared."
Here are the steps Mr. Bush should take at once to provide the needed
leadership on missile defense — and to minimize the chances
that he will be thwarted at every turn by the likes of Messrs. Biden
and Levin:
1. Mr. Bush should announce that the United States believes that
the missile threat now justifies the immediate, emergency deployment
of anti-missile capabilities. The emergency arises from missile
developments in Iran, Libya, North Korea, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria,
Sudan, and China (both vis-a-vis Taiwan and the United States).
During recently completed consultations with many nations, his representatives
made clear our view on this score and served notice that the president
was determined to respond appropriately.
2. As a practical matter, an immediate deployment can only take
place at the moment by using the Navy's Aegis air-defense ships.
While the existing Aegis system would have very limited ability
to shoot down long-range ballistic missiles, the presence of an
American missile defense of even uncertain effectiveness may help
dissuade nations contemplating attacks — and comfort coalition
partners, other allies, and U.S. personnel sent into harm's way
who have reason to fear those attacks. A similar strategic benefit
materialized when Patriot air defenses of unknown quality as anti-missile
systems were dispatched to the Persian Gulf and Israel at the time
of Operation Desert Shield.
3. What is more, six months from now — given the appropriate
presidential priority and a minimal increase in resources —
the Navy could introduce several low-cost improvements to the performance
of the existing Aegis radar and missile systems so as to increase
significantly their probability-of-kill under specified circumstances.
4. Accordingly, the president should immediately announce that,
henceforth, Aegis ships equipped with existing Standard Missile
II Block IV missiles will be tasked to provide whatever anti-missile
protection they can to U.S. forces and allies and to the American
people at home. The president has the authority to depart from the
ABM Treaty — which prohibits the United States from defending
its territory against ballistic-missile attack — without congressional
assent. And, thanks to the negligible marginal costs associated
with the first of these initiatives, he can act without having to
seek additional funding from Congress.
5. Having set in train his defensive program, Mr. Bush can go to
the American people and elicit their support for the next steps
— initially, the relatively low-cost upgrades to the Aegis
system and then, as needed, other complementary and cost-effective
anti-missile systems (the most attractive option being space-based
defenses). In this fashion, the president has a chance to present
Senators Biden and Levin with a fait accompli that will be much
more difficult to oppose, let alone undo, than would be the sort
of "business-as-usual" approach driven by budget timelines and processes.
The latter are mortally susceptible to behind-the-scenes sabotaging
at which veteran lawmakers like Joe Biden and Carl Levin are past
masters.
As it happens, there will probably be no better time to launch Mr.
Bush's missile-defense initiative than in the midst of the hoopla
over the summer's newest blockbuster movie, Pearl Harbor.
After all, the American people have rarely had more occasion to
focus on the ineluctable fact that surprise attacks, like that on
Oahu, are by definition surprises. With that reminder, President
Bush should have to do little more than establish his determination
not to leave our nation vulnerable to a future Pearl Harbor —
one that, if conducted by weapons of mass destruction and delivered
via long-range ballistic missiles, could make the destruction on
U.S. soil and loss of American lives inflicted by Japan in 1941
pale by comparison.
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