Against Whom Are American Missile Defenses Protecting?

For Chuck Hagel, being the new secretary of defense will be no easy task. At his confirmation by the Senate in January and February of this year, he had to endure a barrage of criticism and uncomfortable questions, particularly from the Republican "hawks." Hagel was confirmed for the post but, after his Senate hearing, looked rather perplexed and bruised. He, along with other top Pentagon leaders, was once again called to meet with the House Armed Services Committee, this time on reducing agency costs, and he was again badly bruised.

No matter how much you try to paint Chuck Hagel as a pacifist, he is by no means a dove. He is from the ranks of moderate members of the Republican establishment who are called “realists.” The reality today is that the U.S. needs to cut its military budget, which directly translates to closing military bases overseas, reducing staff, changing the arms purchase program and avoiding military action in the near future.

In the committee, of course, questions came up about North Korea and Iran. If the Islamic Republic proclaims to everyone that its nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes, then the Democratic People's Republic of Korea rattles its cage full of nuclear weapons and threatens to attack the continental U.S. The committee asked Hagel what implications this had for the military. His answer was evasive as usual, but his words made those of us in this country, already fraught with anxiety — by position or personal opinion — more closely follow the global proliferation of the U.S. missile defense program.

The U.S. secretary of defense said that, in his opinion, neither Iran nor North Korea has long-range missiles or nuclear warheads capable of striking the U.S., but he didn’t rule out their ability to do so in the future.

If you translate Hagel’s words into Russian, you get two important messages. First, that the Obama administration doesn’t consider a war on the Korean Peninsula to be a real threat, and that it opposes striking Iran’s nuclear facilities and even general military action against the country. Second, that the missile defense systems will still be built, and the United States won’t let a real threat come to fruition at that address.

This might show that one of the senior officials in Washington has finally recognized that the missile defense system is being built, not against “rogue states,” but against other nuclear-capable countries — especially Russia. Therefore, we can express our concern, insist on legally binding documents on missile defenses not directed against our country, speak about aggressiveness of the U.S. military and repeat like a mantra that our nuclear shield is the only thing that maintains Russia’s sovereignty.

Are the yet-to-be-built missile defenses aimed to defend against Russia? Understandably, yes — just as they are aimed at defending against all others. Anti-ballistic missiles are directed against any strategic threat to the United States, even supposedly mythical and purely speculative ones.

Even though the most inveterate pacifist became president of the United States, he still won’t give up the construction of missile defenses because it is one of the fundamental components of ensuring the strategic invulnerability of America. Today, the U.S. has the resources and ability to ensure such security, at the current level of weapons development. Thus, the question of whether to provide it or not is moot.

The U.S. will strive for complete invulnerability, the consequences of which are complete impunity. If too much emphasis is put on “legally binding” documents that continue to impose the old principles of nuclear parity, the U.S. will achieve its coveted impunity.

Besides the missile defense of the U.S., its armed forces have many new technological and tactical developments. The concept of a global strike assumes the loss of vital installations in the territory of any country with the help of conventional warheads carried by hypersonic rockets with a non-ballistic trajectory.

The shale revolution is also contributing to America’s position of invulnerability, by striving to guarantee America’s energy independence. This brings an entire line of manufacturers back from abroad — from gigantic Caterpillar trucks to Apple computers and smartphones.

Under no circumstances does this mean that, achieving strategic invulnerability, the U.S. will unleash a war, seize or destroy the rest of the world, or ruin the economies of its competitors. However, the world has changed radically, and today the majority of decisions about the fate of the world are being made in Washington, D.C. In this “beautiful new world,” diplomacy and armed forces — except those of the U.S. — will lose all meaning.

We need to get used to the idea that this kind of strategy exists and that it has every chance of becoming reality. Knowing this, we can act accordingly — and not only in the military-technical sphere, though it is very important. Today, the U.S. has moved far ahead economically and technologically, allowing it to build this kind of strategy.

In this situation, Russia must absolutely focus on our own economic and technological development. Concentrating only on the arms race is pointless — we’ve already gotten past such things. However, if in 10 to 20 years Russia doesn’t find more to interest the world than mineral resources, if the technological level of our industries doesn’t reach the level of the rest of the world, if our citizens do not have the chance to successfully invest their capabilities in their own country, then Russia will lose the opportunity to build its own global strategy. The fact that it would be cheaper for the U.S. to abandon strategic invulnerability in order to invest in peacebuilding efforts is of no concern.

Actually, we should have thought about a new future for Russia long before Chuck Hagel began sluggishly fending off members of the Congressional Committee. But now that Chuck has made it clear to all of us, there are no longer any excuses.