The Missile Defense Divide
"Europe’s Aversion to NMD" by Justin Bernier and Daniel Keohane, in Strategic Review (Winter 2001), United States Strategic Institute, 67 Bay State Rd., Boston, Mass. 02215.
"Europe’s Aversion to NMD" by Justin Bernier and Daniel Keohane, in Strategic Review (Winter 2001), United States Strategic Institute, 67 Bay State Rd., Boston, Mass. 02215.
Why have America’s European allies been so reluctant to go along with the U.S. effort to develop a defense against a potential "rogue state" missile attack? In part, they’ve deemed continued reliance on arms control and nuclear deterrence less risky; they’ve also worried about Russia’s opposition (which has softened recently). And then there’s the multibillion-dollar cost. But, say the authors, there’s another, oft-ignored reason: "European governments do not believe that North Korea, Iran, and Iraq harbor intentions of using long-range missiles against Europe, even if they will be capable of doing so." Europe does not object to ballistic missile defense per se. "The Netherlands and Germany, for example, have decided to buy...a newer version of the Patriot theater missile defense system," note Bernier, a staff member of the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University, in Washington, and Keohane, a Visiting Research Fellow at the Western European Union Institute for Security Studies, in Paris. However, theater missile defense systems are able to shield only relatively small areas from shortrange missiles. Nor has Europe failed to grasp the rogue states’ growing military capabilities. In a report last year, for instance, Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service warned that nuclear, bacteriological, and chemical weapons, in combination with long-range missiles, constitute "a direct threat . . . to Germany and NATO [the North Atlantic Treaty Organization] in the medium and long term." By 2005, the report said, Iraq will possess a mediumrange missile capable of threatening parts of Europe. However, Bernier and Keohane point out, European governments, unlike that of the United States, see no intent or will on the part of rogue states to employ such weapons. "While Europe has significant economic and political interests in the Middle East and Far East," the authors write, "these interests are not backed by military commitments comparable to those of the United States." The Europeans count on "their growing, and relatively strong, political and economic ties with ‘the rogues’ " to deter attack. But if Europe’s opposition to the U.S. effort stems to a significant degree from a strategic calculation that Europe, unlike the world’s lone superpower, has little to fear from the rogue states, the authors warn, that could have "profound" implications for NATO. Its members, after all, are pledged to regard an attack on one as an attack on all.