| We should consider these recent nuclear and military events:
North Korea successfully maneuvered Washington to buy it off in return for its development of a probable nuclear weapons system, aided Iran’s and Pakistan’s nuclear missile programs, and flight tested the Taepo-Dong 1 and Nodong missiles which could become the ballistic missiles carrying nuclear warheads as far as the continental United States. In response Seoul has sought since 1998 to develop or purchase longer range missiles against the North. 27
India and Pakistan have tested nuclear weapons, weaponized them, and are quickly developing short-range, medium, and long-range missiles as well as conventional forces. 28 India’s new doctrine advocates early warning and deterrence which may be impossible given Pakistan’s proximity and also presages a very large nuclear arsenal. 29
Both governments received material assistance from outside, China, the United States, and possibly Russia or the Soviet Union. India is building the Sagarika sub-surface nuclear missile, and nuclear powered submarines with Russian help. Its space program materially assists the construction of its nuclear missiles and is abetted by Moscow. 30 Meanwhile, Pakistan continues tempting fate by inciting bloody, prolonged, low-level conflicts in Kashmir. 31
Both states also clearly intend to have a robust space presence, presumably including first satellites and then probably other systems aiming to militarize space for their purposes. 32
U.S. and Israeli officials now accept that Iran will have an IRBM and nuclear capability by 2005 with the Shihab-3 and will be close to expanding it into an ICBM capability with the Shihab-4. CINC CENTCOM, General Anthony Zinni publicly professed that Iran would have a nuclear capability within 3-5 years, and the CIA now says it cannot guarantee that Iran will not have a nuclear capability to go with its recently tested Shahab-3 IRBM. 33 These developments were possible only with extensive Russian, Chinese, and North Korean proliferation. 34
Israel is going beyond its acknowledged first-strike capability to a second strike sea-based nuclear capability by purchasing German Dolphin Class submarines. As predicted, Israel will respond to its enemies’ acquisition of a first-strike capability by building a credible second-strike sea-based option. 35 Yet simultaneously Israel is building the Arrow missile which will also have an offensive capability “to cover all bets” and prevent missile attacks upon its territory or forces. 36 Israel is also discussing providing Turkey with a modified form of missile defense against the missile threats that Ankara perceives from virtually all of its neighbors. 37
Iraq’s programs to build nuclear, biological and chemical weapons continue despite all the UN-imposed restrictions on them. 38 As no inspections have taken place for at least a year, despite desperate domestic conditions, Iraq undoubtedly is continuing Saddam Hussein’s lifelong quest for diverse WMD capabilities. 39
The Senate decisively repudiated the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty despite widespread fears that this vote would encourage more proliferation. Other governments, e.g. Russia, seized that opportunity to proclaim that vote a threat to international stability and an invitation to proliferation. 40 Meanwhile the Clinton Administration has all but delivered Moscow an ultimatum that it support amendments to the ABM treaty allowing the United States to construct a national missile defense.
Defense Secretary Cohen has also stated that any attack on U.S. satellites, a likely opening move by an enemy seeking to deny us our capabilities for precision strike and information dominance, would be regarded as an “infringement on our sovereign rights.” That attack could justify the use of all appropriate self-defense measures by the United States, including the use of force. 41 And if that attack was a nuclear one in, to, or from, space, pressure for an equivalent riposte would be enormous.
Similarly the Clinton Administration has publicly stated that chemical or biological attacks on the United States could justify nuclear responses and it refuses to rule out the use of nuclear weapons as part of its counterproliferation program. 42
Russia has repeatedly made it clear that it will deter even smaller-scale conventional attacks against key installations or allies (i.e. extended deterrence) with nuclear weapons. 43 Its new draft security concept and defense doctrine repeated those statements, and analysts and officials told the author that the NATO invasion of Kosovo had stimulated doctrine writers to add scenarios for the use of tactical nuclear weapons (TNW) against purely conventional attacks. 44
Thus in December, 1999, Colonel General Vladimir Yakovlev, CINC of Russia’s nuclear forces stated that Russia, for objective reasons, must lower the threshold for using nuclear weapons, extend the nuclear deterrent to smaller-scale conflicts and op |
