Krasnodar is a beautiful region near the Black Sea which is justly famous for its black tea. It may become the home for Iskander tactical ballistic missiles, now that the Kremlin has pulled the plug on talks with the Obama administration over missile defenses. The passage of time clearly has not diminished Moscow’s hyper-sensitivity over missile defenses. The threat to deploy the Iskander is part of a menu of choices ostensibly designed to protect Russia from a nonexistent threat from the west. Or, more likely, to project the Kremlin’s unhappiness at not being able to prevent US theater missile defense deployments in its “near abroad.”
Moscow claims that theater missile defense deployments are part of a nefarious plan to negate Russia’s strategic deterrent. This argument becomes increasingly implausible as budget deficits curtail US strategic modernization programs, shrink force structure, and reduce spending for BMD programs. In reality, alcohol and tobacco pose far more of a threat to Russia’s national security than TMD deployments geared toward threats emanating from Iran.
Old, Cold War-era phobias die hard, especially in Russia, where nuclear weapons remain the primary currency of status in a nation whose proud history and future promise have been clouded by public health crises, population decline, endemic corruption and political stagnation. Russia now joins Pakistan in threatening to embrace short-range, nuclear-capable missiles as a means to shore up deterrence and national psychology.
A missile defense deployments-at-all-costs mentality also dies hard in the United States, where TMD has replaced national missile defenses as the current cause célèbre in Republican circles. If missile defense enthusiasts try to employ TMD as a back-door means to pursue national missile defenses, then Moscow’s opposition will have plenty of company in the United States, including from this quarter. Before jumping on Moscow’s bandwagon, however, it’s worth remembering that US BMD deployments have always lagged far behind projections. The Pentagon would rather spend diminishing resources on more pressing, affordable, and technically feasible military programs.
True to form, the Obama administration’s ambitious TMD plans are now being pared back by budgetary realities. The value of TMD deployments in countering proliferation threats has to be weighed against the heartburn it causes Moscow and Beijing. Architecture and deployment levels will clarify purpose, since theater missile defenses are worth pursuing to counter threats from outlier states, not major powers.
TMD deployments can help shore up the Nonproliferation Treaty regime by signaling US support in very tangible ways to states concerned over Iranian and North Korean nuclear and missile programs, especially as the US nuclear umbrella becomes less of a factor in alliance relations. US friends and allies in troubled regions, as well as Moscow and Beijing, do not buy the argument that TMD is doomed to fail. Another reason for selective TMD deployments against outliers is to support states that do not wish to be drawn back into Russia’s orbit, joining Belarus which, like Krasnodar, may also find itself hosting Iskander missiles. This rationale may well aggravate the Kremlin the most.
Washington uses missile defenses to affirm partnerships; Moscow uses implied nuclear threats to regain its clout. Moscow is playing a weak hand unwisely but not unexpectedly: states that vehemently oppose missile defenses are most strongly beholden to nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles for suasion and status. Weapon systems like the Iskander are cards in the deck that cannot be played without grievous losses. In contrast, theater missile defenses might just help prevent grievous losses. Unlike outliers, countries that possess highly pedigreed missiles, like Russia, can readily take steps to ensure that TMD will not negate their deterrents.
Until TMD effectiveness is demonstrated in rigorous flight tests, these deployments will have more political than military utility. BMD testing that improves intercept capabilities against less advanced missiles can, in turn, reinforce the political utility of TMD deployments against outliers.
Russian strategic concerns warrant serious attention, but Moscow cannot be given a veto over Washington’s dealings with allies, friends, and states that were once involuntary members of the Warsaw Pact – especially when its arguments against TMD are phobic relics of the Cold War. The notion that missile defenses will facilitate a bolt-out-of-the-blue pre-emptive US strike against Moscow’s nuclear forces made no sense then, and is complete nonsense now that the Cold War is over and Washington and Moscow have nothing to fight about. Western analysts who indulge their Russian counterparts by lending credence to this phobic fantasy have become prisoners of computer simulations of nuclear war-fighting scenarios.
Seeking national missile defenses against Russia and China by means of high deployment levels of advanced TMD is unwise as well as unfeasible. It is also unlikely in an environment of strained military budgets and long-term, yawning deficits. For the foreseeable future, technological, political, and especially budgetary restraints can serve to limit TMD deployments to the regions where they are most needed.
Moscow’s blustery exit from BMD talks with Washington will backfire, as it did in 1983. Influence is not advanced by leaving your seat at the table. A phobic response to limited theater missile defense deployments is as anachronistic as the threatened deployment of tactical nuclear weapons. This is 2011, not 1983. The contraction of US and Russian strategic force levels will continue apace. Krasnodar would be far better served by exporting tea than by importing Iskander missiles.