THAAD and the effect of Defense on Nuclear Strategy
Charles W. King
In recent years the United States has begun to deploy new methods of countering ballistic missile systems, particularly to Poland and more recently South Korea. Both deployments have explicitly been to counter the increasing capability of Iranian and North Korean missile systems. The Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China have objected vehemently to the deployment of anti-ballistic missile systems near their borders. Some of the saber-rattling and acts of aggression that Russia and China have undertaken recently may be a direct response to the deployment of these systems.
Why the Russians and Chinese would react so aggressively to an apparently defensive system shows how subtle the intricacies of nuclear weapons strategy are. The 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty was one of the landmark treaties of the Cold War. It prevented the Cold War from escalating further. If the US or the USSR were confident that it would be able to destroy any and all incoming nuclear weapons then they would be more willing to engage in a policy of first strike. Both sides were understandably afraid the other would adopt such a policy. While the ABM Treaty did not eliminate ABM systems from American or Soviet arsenals, it limited their numbers of to hundreds interceptors at a time when each side possessed thousands of warheads and delivery systems. Without the ability to mount a completely effective ABM defense neither side would be willing to engage in a first strike policy. The US’s withdrawal in 2002 from the ABM Treaty did not lead to the breakdown of the international non-proliferation regime that some feared at the time, but does represent a dramatic shift in American nuclear weapon strategy.
Some observers are reasonably skeptical of whether the deployment of systems like Terminal High Altitude Ariel Defense (THAAD) significantly increase the US’s ability to intercept Russian and Chinese missiles. After all, the US already operates ABM sites in Japan and Naval ABM systems. The neglects the fact that any reduction in the viability of a nuclear deterrent is a serious threat to a nuclear deterrent.
It is this possibility, that their nuclear arsenals no longer have a deterrent value in the face of American ABM systems like THAAD, that has made the Russians and Chinese object to the deployment of American ABM systems so violently. The Russians and Chinese rely on their nuclear deterrent just as much as the US does, if not more. They have a more recent and extensive history of foreign domination than the United States does, as well as disputed land borders and off-shore claims, neither of which are an issue for the US. Russia and China have been the primary targets for American nuclear weapons since the end of World War Two, that the US might be able to use them without fear of retaliation is understandably terrifying to Russian and Chinese policy-makers. It will continue to be essential for American policy-makers to balance the need to counter the threat of nuclear weapons from pariah states like Iran and North Korea with the escalation of tensions with longtime rivals like Russia and China.
Further Reading
Ronald E. Powaski, March to Armageddon: The United States and the Nuclear Arms Race, 1939 to the Present, (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1987).
David E. Hoffman, The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy, (New York, NY: Doubleday, 2009).