LIVING WITH STAR WARS

Michael Howard examines how we should

respond to the Strategic Defence Initiative, this week promoted in Europe by Vice-President Bush

PERHAPS the most remarkable aspect of the Star Wars controversy is the passion which it has aroused on both sides. The analogy with theology is inescapable; like theologians, nuclear strategists deal with the inherently unverifiable, and it is pre- cisely the unverifiable that evokes the most passionate commitment. As in theology, the views of the protagonists are likely to be determined not by any process of rational calculation but by their personal psychology and cultural background. And as in theology we shall discover who was right only when it is too late to do anything about it.

One might have expected that President Reagan's proposal of 23 March 1983 to render nuclear weapons 'impotent and obsolete' would meet with universal approval. So long as it was regarded as a pious anodyne it received a ripple of polite applause. But once people realised that he meant what he said, their reaction was rather like that accorded in Saki's short story to the angel who descended from Heaven ecstatically proclaiming the Apo- calypse, only to be told it would have to be postponed indefinitely as it clashed with Ascot. Criticism ranged from the politely sceptical to the ferociously hostile, and supporters of the project quickly de- veloped an intensity verging on the fanatic- al; increasingly so as evidence multiplied of the expense and impracticability of the President's ambitions. Credo quia impossi- bile est, I believe it because it is impossible, became the motto of the Star Warriors — or rather, it is impossible that it should be impossible. The battle lines drawn up ten years earlier over the ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile) issue in the United States were reoccupied, by much the same troops.

Edward Teller, Albert Wohlstetter, Colin Gray and the Committee on the Present Danger supported the President's propos- als, Hans Bethe, Sidney Drell, Richard Garwin and the Union for Concerned Scientists opposed him; a fault line dividing the American scientific and strategic com- munities into two bitterly warring factions.

This time, however, the battle crossed the Atlantic, Lord Chalfont and Professor Lawrence Freedman leading the respective auxiliary forces in this country. When the

Foreign Secretary explained, on 15 March, some of the problems the British Govern- ment faced in accepting the full DSI gospel, the Times first tried to kill the speech by reporting it briefly on an inside page and then attacked it in a lengthy article whose hysterical and vituperative tones gave grounds for doubting not so much the writer's judgment as the very balance of his mind.

How can this bitterness be explained? The SDI gospel seems harmless enough. The existing balance of terror, based on Mutual Assured Destruction, according to

President Reagan, is both immoral and in the long run unstable. It holds civilians hostage for the good behaviour of their governments (a somewhat sensitive issue at the moment) and places the world at the mercy of nuclear miscalculation; exactly the point made by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. So nuclear weapons must be abolished — not by an act of political will such as that urged by the CND, but by a great technological effort comparable to that which gave us nuclear weapons in the first place and which put a man on the moon. It is an immensely inspiring idea: American tech-

nology must be placed at the service of American idealism to produce perpetual peace. 'Do not argue the difficulties,' the President might have said, in the words of Winston Churchill: 'the difficulties argue themselves.'

The eventual goal of SDI is thus to create defences so strong that incoming missiles cannot penetrate them — or, at least, that there can be no assurance that they will penetrate them. Ballistic missiles will be targeted by space-based laser weapons in the initial 'boost' phase im- mediately after their launching, before the multiple warheads have separated from their parent launcher. Further systems will identify and target them in flight; while finally ground-based, terminally guided surface-to-air missiles will destroy the re- mainder high over their targets. Even if such a system does not produce total security — which President Reagan still insists to be its ultimate intention — it will so complicate the task of a potential aggressor as greatly to reduce the danger of a surprise attack, thus enhancing strategic stability. With the lethalness of nuclear weapons so drastically reduced, it should be easier to negotiate their total abolition. And at the very least the possibilities of such a system should be actively investi- gated, since there is good reason to sup- pose that the Soviet Union is doing exactly the same.

These arguments, especially as set out by an experienced diplomat like Mr Paul Nitze in his Alastair Buchan Memorial Lecture last 28 March, are so persuasive that we may well wonder what all the fuss is about. The protagonists of SDI attribute the opposition to the unwillingness or inability of believers in Mutual Assured Destruction, the orthodoxy which has reigned for 30 years, to rethink their position in the light of new technical possibilities; the 'Luddism' of which the Times accused poor Sir Geoffrey Howe. It cannot be denied that there is a huge vested interest in that orthodoxy. It was first enunciated by Winston Churchill in his last great speech in March 1955, when he expressed the hope that safety might be- come 'the sturdy child of terror'. The knowledge on both sides that the bomber,

and even more the missile, would always get through, and if they did get through even in minute numbers would cause almost incalculable damage, is the great anchor in international politics, constrain- ing ambitions on both sides. The object of arms control negotiations over the past 20 years has been to ensure that, whatever else might happen in the course of arms build-ups, each side will retain an invulner- able 'deterrent' and will be seen to possess it. No one has been very enthusiastic about this solution which, like the idea of demo- cracy itself, assumes a degree of rationality in mankind which little in our history would lead us to expect. But as in the case of democracy, all likely alternative arrangements appear even worse, and we have settled for MAD as the best we are likely to get.

In defence of the 'Luddites', however, two things must be said. The first is that if indeed nuclear weapons were made 'impo- tent and obsolete', it is by no means clear that the world would be a better place. The immediate result would be to make the world safe for conventional war, and we would be back in the halcyon environment of 1939. West Europeans in particular could take little comfort from the know- ledge that the Soviet Union could now

attack them without the slightest fear of nuclear retaliation. The second is more immediately to the point. The belief that the missile would always get through — or that some would always get through — has been based on scientific and technological arguments which were generally held to be valid, and the burden of proof lies very heavily on those who maintain that this is no longer the case. Valiant statements of intent are not good enough: after all, a 'Manhattan Project' to equip us all with wings would go far to eliminate our traffic problems. But the scientific debate so far has consisted of little more than restate- ments by the Luddites of the difficulties in the way of developing effective anti- ballistic missile defences, and professions of faith by the Star Warriors of what they could do, given the time and the money.

This is not the place to rehearse those difficulties in detail, but they are summa- rised with great lucidity and fairness by the formidable Professor R. V. Jones in a pamphlet, New Light on Star Wars, recent- ly published by the Thatcherite Centre for Policy Studies — an establishment not renowned as one of our more notorious dovecotes. Their order of magnitude can be gauged from the admission of President Reagan's Under-Secretary for Research and Development, Dr Richard De Lauer, that research and development for the Strategic Defence Initiative would involve at least eight components, 'every single one . . . equivalent to or greater than the Manhattan Project'. American defences would have to shoot down something like 1,400 Soviet ICBMs (ignoring such other launchers as cruise missiles), each with up to ten nuclear warheads. To catch these in the 'boost' phase (that is before their

warheads have separated) would require that they were observed and destroyed within four minutes, probably by a laser or particle-beam device either stationed in space or reflected off a space-based mirror. The degree of accuracy of these beams against their rapidly moving targets would, according to Professor Jones, need to be comparable to that of a rifle firing at 1,000 miles range with an aiming error of no more than one bullet diameter; and that without firing a sighting shot. To deal with all existing Soviet ICBMs simultaneously it would be necessary to place up to 4,000 satellites in orbit (fewer, of course, if each satellite could be re-aimed rapidly enough to target several launchers). Each satellite would cost as much as an aircraft carrier at current prices. Professor Jones would be the last person to claim infallibility for his figures, but they give a very fair idea of the scale of the problem involved.

Further complications would be the vul- nerability of these satellites to prc-cmptive attack; the ease with which their aim could be deflected by counter-measures; the well-nigh incomputable problems of com- mand and control; their irrelevance to defence against non-ballistic launchers such as cruise missiles; and above all the argument, as valid today as it was 20 years ago, that it will always be cheaper for the assailant to multiply his means of attack and so swamp the defences than it will be for the defender to counter them. The paradox is that for SDI to be effective the Soviet Union will have to co-operate by restricting the number of its launchers. But there is no reason whatever to suppose that the Russians will wish to help their adver- saries attain a position of invulnerability which they can only regard as a threat to their own security, when they so easily can undermine it on the cheap.

Doubts about the feasibility of SDI are thus compounded by fears about the effect it will have on the international environ- ment over the many years which, as its

proponents admit, they will take to achieve their ultimate goal. For until that goal is achieved, 'deterrence', or Mutual Assured Destruction, will continue to be the basis of international stability and the goal of arms control negotiations. Further, we must assume that the Soviet Union will be building up its own strategic defences at least as fast as the United States. The management of the arms competition so that neither side sees the other as likely to present an intolerable threat to its own survival is already an immensely complex matter demanding considerable mutual understanding and goodwill. The abandon- ment of such restrictions as already exist on anti-ballistic missile systems; the tempta- tion to swamp or circumvent the adver- sary's growing defences with offensive build-ups; the difficulty of agreeing on what would be non-threatening 'mixes' of offensive and defensive systems; and, underlying it all, the reciprocal fear that the opponent is seeking invulnerability only in order to dominate the world; all this is likely to sharpen international ten- sions yet further and suck yet more scarce resources into the arms race. The military themselves, knowing that at least some of the resources for the new programmes must come from their own allocations for conventional defences, are already far from enthusiastic about the whole idea.

These doubts and fears, forcefully and freely expressed throughout the United States and Western Europe, have clearly disconcerted members of the Reagan administration and their friends on this side of the Atlantic. Some have tried to overcome them by the bullying techniques favoured by the editor of the Times: the American technologists know best, to ex- press any doubt on this score is to give aid

and comfort to the enemy, loyalty to the alliance demands that we should shut up and get on with it — lucrative contracts being dangled before the eyes of those willing to come on board. Others, more wisely, have tried to calm those doubts by downplaying the more extreme aspirations of the Star Warriors and emphasising the positive aspects of the programme. They stress, quite properly, the need to keep pace with Soviet activity in the field of strategic defence research, and, slightly less credibly, the part which such develop- ments could play in enhancing deterrence.

On her visit to the United States last February Mrs Thatcher elicited agreement from President Reagan to four very impor- tant points. First, the object of SDI was not to achieve superiority over, but to maintain balance with, the Soviet Union. Second, the deployment of any SDI-related systems would have to be a matter of negotiation. Third, the overall aim is to enhance and not undercut deterrence. And lastly, nego- tiations should aim to achieve security with reduced levels of offensive systems on both sides.

All these points were endorsed by Paul Nitze in London in March, when he em- phasised that:

the US objective is a radical reduction in the power of existing and planned offensive nuclear arms, as well as the stabilisation of the relationship between offensive and de- fensive nuclear arms, whether on earth or in space. We are even now looking forward to a period of transition to a more stable world, with greatly reduced levels of nuclear arms and an enhanced ability to deter war based upon an increasing contribution of non- nuclear defences against offensive nuclear arms.

With such suavely presented aspirations it is difficult to quarrel. But there remain deep-seated European — and no doubt Soviet — fears that the Reagan administra- tion has in mind a more fundamental transformation, using American technolo- gy to capture the high ground and keep it, achieving ultimately a position of invulner- ability so assured that they need no longer listen to the Europeans or talk to the Russians. It is an understandable aspira- tion, and one that no doubt accounts for the enthusiasm which the Star Wars prog- ramme has evoked in so many quarters of the United States, but it is one that has grim implications for the rest of the world. President Reagan's public assurances to the Prime Minister are thus of immense importance, and the best way to strengthen his hand is to assure him of our confidence. that he means to live up to them.

In any case the SDI has now been launched, and millions of dollars have now been allocated to research programmes which will long outlive the present adminis- tration. Some of these will run into the ground. Others may produce interesting and surprising results which could force a re-assessment of current strategic assump- tions. The autonomous development of space and laser technology would anyhow have had implications, sooner or later, for weapons development such as no responsi- ble government could ignore, and the feasibility of strategic defence certainly needs to be kept under constant examina- tion — as indeed has been happening for many years beyond the Iron Curtain. Weapons technology cannot, any more than any other branch of technology, be frozen indefinitely. It is a pity that what might have been a sensible and necessary programme of research should have been initiated so apocalyptically, presented so abrasively and pursued so wastefully. But that is, alas, the transatlantic style.

Those of us who recall the days of Mr

MacNamara's high-pressure salesmanship, of Flexible Response and the Multi- National Force, have today a considerable sense of deft) vu. But the alliance managed to digest those innovations. This time it will be more difficult, since the Soviet Union will be involved in a way that it was not in those earlier initiatives. Our diplo- mats will have to work hard, but they have had long experience of this kind of damage limitation. Anyhow their task will be a great deal easier if the Times keeps quiet for a bit. Michael Howard is Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford.