Impact turns + answers – bfhmrs russia War Good
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Harbor Teacher Prep-subingsubing-Ho-Neg-Lamdl T1-Round3, Impact Turns Aff Neg - Michigan7 2019 BFHMRS
AT: BMD SolvesBMD doesn’t solve Russian retaliationThompson 15 (Loren Thompson, Chief Operating Officer of the non-profit Lexington Institute and Chief Executive Officer of Source Associates, former Deputy Director of the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University, also taught at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, doctoral and masters degrees in government from Georgetown University and a bachelor of science degree in political science from Northeastern University, “The U.S. Has No Defense Against A Russian Nuclear Attack. Really.” 3-20-2015, https://www.forbes.com/sites/lorenthompson/2015/03/20/the-u-s-has-no-defense-against-a-russian-nuclear-attack-really/#d78424977508)//KMM In order to get Moscow to stop increasing its arsenal, the U.S. agreed to an Anti-ballistic Missile Treaty in 1972. In effect, it traded away the right to defend its homeland in return for stabilizing the arms race. But stabilization in this case meant the two countries would have an assured ability to wipe each other out. The thinking was that if each side knew launching a nuclear attack would result in devastating ("unacceptable") retaliation, then neither would ever commit nuclear aggression against the other. The nicest thing that can be said about this approach to security is that it opened the way to reductions in nuclear arsenals on both sides. The arms reductions have been substantial, but in a way they don't matter: Russia still has an assured capacity to obliterate America's society and economy. That isn't going to change, because Moscow doesn't trust Washington and nuclear weapons are its sole remaining claim to superpower status. A few U.S. leaders, most notably Ronald Reagan, understood what a bad bargain this was. They saw that a security system based on "mutual assured destruction" would be unable to cope with enemies who were irrational, or accident prone, or unable to secure their arsenal against a breakdown in the chain of command. They also understood that miscommunication and misjudgments are common in confrontations such as the Cuban Missile Crisis. Even rational leaders can make mistakes when arsenals are poised to launch on a hair trigger. However, Reagan's efforts to develop ballistic missile defenses of the homeland were derailed by the end of the Cold War, because many observers assumed the waning of superpower rivalries would diminish the danger of nuclear conflict. Missile defense lost its urgency until the end of the Clinton years, when the prospect of a nuclear-armed North Korea reignited interest. George W. Bush withdrew the U.S. from the treaty banning homeland missile defenses, but his concern too was mainly with North Korea (and to a lesser extent Iran) -- Russia was not a focus of his administration's modest missile defense efforts. The Obama Administration has followed the lead of past Democratic administrations in viewing homeland missile defense as (1) too hard, (2) too expensive, and (3) too destabilizing. Until Russia unexpectedly invaded Ukraine, Obama's security team preferred to focus on further reductions in nuclear arsenals and maintaining a minimal defensive shield on the West Coast oriented to North Korea. To the extent it thought at all about the possibility of Russian nuclear aggression, its solution was a survivable retaliatory capability -- in other words, offensively-based deterrence. That deterrent -- a "triad" of land-based and sea-based missiles plus bombers -- is arguably the most important feature of the U.S. military posture for the simple reason that Russia's nuclear arsenal is the most important threat. However, on the day deterrence fails, America's highly capable strategic force will be little comfort because it can't do anything to intercept incoming warheads. All it can do is lay waste to Russia. The minimal defensive system the Obama Administration has sustained against North Korea's fledgling nuclear threat, called the Ground-based Midcourse Defense, can potentially intercept warheads attacking from any direction, but more than a dozen Russian warheads would overwhelm it. So here we sit, able to detect a Russian launch almost immediately and retaliate with devastating force, but powerless to defend our homeland and loved ones from nuclear aggression. This is the kind of strategic myopia that eventually leads to catastrophe. What America needs is a layered, resilient defensive network against Russian ballistic missiles that at least can negate the kind of limited attack resulting from a strategic error or miscalculation. That network would presumably include elements on land, at sea and in space that could give defenders multiple shots against any incoming warheads. After all, if you have three layers that are each 80% effective, then cumulatively only one in a hundred warheads would get through to their targets. Critics complain that such a system would be astronomically expensive. However, even a crash program to deploy homeland missile defenses would likely cost much less than what taxpayers are coughing up today to defend hopeless cases like Afghanistan and Iraq. And compared with the value of assets that might be destroyed in a nuclear attack, the cost would be genuinely modest -- maybe equivalent to the losses caused by a couple of Russian warheads. I have written a report for my think tank on why homeland missile defenses should be a national strategic imperative that you can read here. Download 0.83 Mb. Share with your friends:
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