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Canada Must Oppose U.S. Missile Defence
Plan: By, John
Polanyi With the announcement by President George W. Bush that the United States plans to move forward with a multi-layered National Missile Defence (NMD), Canadians are approaching a historic decision. Will we hold fast to our traditional commitment to disarmament as the best route to a stable world, or will we take the path of realpolitik, acknowledging that the U.S. is in a position to alter our priorities. The answer to this question should not be in doubt since NMD means dismantling the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty that Prime Minister Jean Chrétien characterized accurately, this past December in Ottawa, as being "the cornerstone of strategic stability." In the 1972 ABM treaty, the two superpowers far-sightedly renounced national missile defence on the grounds that it was delusory and destabilizing. They acknowledged through the treaty that they were naked to attack, and consequently regarded restraint in the deployment of arms as the best hope for peace. Since defensive shields constituted armaments just as surely as did offensive swords, the parties to the agreement were renouncing the former as a prerequisite to restricting the latter. The argument, as the Prime Minister implied, remains valid. There is no evidence that the forward march of technology has rendered it invalid. The current U.S. proposal takes the opposite view. It requires that the 1972 ABM treaty be scrapped, that national missile defences be built and, incredibly, that disarmament nonetheless proceed. Those who question this scenario are assured that we are now in "a new era"; and are urged to put Cold War thinking behind them. These barbs are well aimed. Nothing frightens liberals more than the suggestion that they may be conservative. Accordingly, following a discussion of NMD with Bush on Feb. 5, Chrétien was moved to say "perhaps we're in a different era." And so, in a sense, we are. But what has changed is not the fundamental truth that restraint begets restraint, but the increased opportunity to show restraint. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, and the subsequent tidal wave of democracy that swept around the globe, the opportunity for strengthening the ABM treaty by, for example, banning all interference with satellites, has never been greater. With the threat of Armageddon lessened, we should be widening the regime of arms control. We should be relying more on diplomacy and less on arms. Instead, we are offered by the U.S. an elaborate, costly, and technologically unproven plan for countering a nuclear surprise attack. The warning against Cold War thinking seems apposite, but it is being directed at the wrong party. The proposed reduction in U.S. strategic missiles to a level that may be closer to the 1,500 (on either side) favoured by Russia, represents a welcome gesture of restraint on the part of the United States. The fact that it is coupled with the announcement of a major U.S. defence initiative should not, however, lead us to suppose that these measures support one another. Unlike the U.S., potential adversaries will not respond to U.S. defences by diminishing armaments. Russia is contemplating various strategies in response to the U.S. NMD, including abrogation of arms control treaties, increase in its number of multiple-warhead missiles, and maintenance of its ICBMs on hair-trigger alert. It is unlikely that it will take all of these steps, since it is the least threatened by a limited NMD. China, which has reason to feel disarmed because of its small nuclear force, can be counted on to accelerate its pace of nuclear armament. Its neighbour India will in all likelihood follow suit, triggering further armament of Pakistan. The pace of these developments cannot be forecasted. What can be confidently predicted is that the existence of U.S. defences will lead to further nuclear armament abroad, rather than the hoped for disarmament. One is led to wonder whether the present U.S. administration is concerned with disarmament. Compared with its own level of weaponry, the arms of its potential adversaries may seem to represent a tolerable threat, susceptible to being ameliorated by high-tech defences. This is a false view today, destined to be more false tomorrow. For in this "new era", there are many ways of delivering weapons of mass destruction, any of which can precipitate a disaster beyond what we have known. Vulnerability, it should be observed, has never been greater than in today's world of high tech, in which satellites can readily be blinded and computers fatally confused. The "Love Letter" virus launched by a casual hacker in the Philippines constituted an attack that did roughly $10 billion damage to the U.S. High tech vulnerability will not be eliminated by increased high tech. Instead, NMD armaments will compound the world's security problems. We must take the opposite tack of disarmament if we are to address the problem of global security. Canada should remain true to its priorities at this time, as it did when pressured to embrace Star Wars by then president Ronald Reagan two decades ago. Then we were one of the very few countries that declined to participate. This time we can expect the support of some major European allies whose citizens harbour deep misgivings in regard to NMD. If we compromise, we betray not only our principles but our friends, most prominently our U.S. neighbours who will before long abandon this short-sighted policy, as they abandoned Star Wars and all previous defences against nuclear weapons going back to the Bomarc nuclear-armed anti-aircraft missiles. Canada, thinking itself a good ally, embraced Bomarc, and then, in the ensuing domestic turmoil, rejected it. That was 40 years ago. Time enough in which to learn that it is better to take the right path from the outset. We can, of course, delay. But we should be in no doubt as to what we must ultimately do. We declined Star Wars and should do the same for National Missile Defence. Nobel laureate John Polanyi is a professor of chemistry at the University of Toronto. He has had a long involvement in the international debate on missile defence. © 2000 Toronto Star, All Rights Reserved. |