thatcher onsecurity 07

7/27/2019 Thatcher OnSecurity 07

1/12

This article was downloaded by: [46.79.2.177]On: 15 July 2013, At: 14:27Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Comparative StrategyPublication details, including instructions for authors and

subscription information:

http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ucst20

Deterrence is not enough: Security

requirements for the 21st centuryMargaret Thatcher Baroness LG OM FRS

Published online: 24 Sep 2007.

To cite this article: Margaret Thatcher Baroness LG OM FRS (1999) Deterrence is not enough:

Security requirements for the 21st century, Comparative Strategy, 18:3, 211-220, DOI:

10.1080/01495939908403176

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01495939908403176

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (theContent) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as tothe accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinionsand views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content

should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sourcesof information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoeveror howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to orarising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions
http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditionshttp://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ucst20http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditionshttp://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditionshttp://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01495939908403176http://www.tandfonline.com/action/showCitFormats?doi=10.1080/01495939908403176http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ucst20


2/12

Special SectionBallistic Missile Defense:New Requirements for a New Century

On December 3, 1998, the National Institute for Public Policy hosted an internationalconference on ballistic missile defense (BMD) in Washington, DC. The conferenceexamined several key issues: (1) the character of the proliferation threat; (2) the potentialfuture roles for BMD; (3) Congressional and international perspectives on BMD; (4) thepotential for international cooperation; and (5) the status of U.S. BMD programs. Thefollowing special section of Comparative Strategy includes several of the presentations,notably the outstanding keynote address by Lady Margaret Thatcher. The NationalInstitute would like to express its most sincere appreciation to Lady Thatcher and to eachof the speakers who made the conference a success.

Downloadedby[46.7

9.2.1

77]at14:2715July2013


3/12

Deterrence Is Not Enough:Security Requirements for the 21st CenturyAs Presented byM A R G A R ET THATCHERBARONESS LG OM FRS

Thank you very much for that remarkable account of things we partly shared togetherduring those vital years. It always struck me that providence favored mankind by bringingtogether two remarkable men during that period in the 1980s. First Ronald Reagan, whohad an instinct to identify the big issues of our time, to analyze them and to take actionto deal with them, not to bother with the small issues or the details, but to identify thebig issues. And in the military field, he was helped enormously by General Abrahamsonwhose genius in the scientific field and leadership in putting the relevant teams togetherhad such tremendously important results for our defense, for our confidence and showedjust how important it is in all defense matters that all our equipment is ahead of anyoneels e's because that can make a vital difference to the effectiveness of your defense.

I think you may find that our speeches have a certain amount in common and I'm alittle bit fearful that you probably know more about it than I do. But if I can give you thepolitical slant and the way we tackled it, and the way we will tackle it in the future, andput that also in a little bit of historical perspective because although the issues weredifferent earlier, we always had to keep our defenses sufficient and up-to-date. If you reallyvalue a law-governed liberty, you will not economize on defense and you will noteconomize on research; both are absolutely vital. And I'm afraid there are far too manypeople who are prepared sometimes to put defense fairly far down the list of priorities upfor expenditure.Now Thatcher's Law of Politics is quite simple, well, one of the laws is quitesimp le: in politics, the unexpected happen s, and when it does, you had better be preparedfor it. And of course when it happens, it's too late, so it means continuously taking aninterest in defense and also in scientific research. And scientific research was not difficultfor me because I qualified in science at university under a very great tutor , Doro thyHodgkin, although her specialty was the structure of penicillin and the structure ofcomplicated molecules. But the point is, it gives you a whole approach to any question:first find the facts, then find the remedies and then put them into action. Now I can startwhat I had intended to say and go through and try to give you the approach of politicianswho have to decide on these matters and who m ust keep up-to-date with them.Now a former Israeli foreign minister, Abba Eban, once remarked that democraticleaders could always be relied upon to adopt the wise and prudent courseonce all otherpossibilities had been exhausted. I believe that in responding to new and disturbingdevelopments within the security environment, the West is proving to be needlesslypainstaking in exhausting those 'other possibilities.' The point of Dr. Payne's conferenceis doubtless to speed up the process. I congratulate him on his initiative, and promise todo all I can to help.

Indeed, there are two good reasons for congratulating the National Institute for PublicPolicy for having organized this conference.

21 1Comparative Strategy, 18:211-220, 1999Copyright 1999 National Institute for Public Policy0149-5933/99 $12.00 + .00

Downloadedby[46.7

9.2.1

77]at14:2715July2013


4/12

212 M. Thatcher

First, the program focuses on a real crisis, as opposed to the kind of 'crises' thatscream for remedy in our newspapers, but which are no more than the reflection of minoror transitory ills. By contrast, the crisis that we are concerned with today is that of theproliferation of wea pons of mass destruction.Also, secondly my friends, the conference program obliges us to reflect more deeplyon the ways in which the international order has changed since the collapse of the SovietUnion, and on the implications of that change for our security. These are matters which Ibelieve have still not been given the attention they deserve, but which can only beneglected at our peril.

The History of Offensive and Defensive WeaponsNow can I put our decisions in some historical perspective and look quickly at the historyof offensive and defensive weapons? It is already clear that one of the mo st remarkablefeatures of the chapter of history which has recently closed was the reliance placed onoffensive weapons. This stands in marked contrast to previous centuries. Indeed, from thevery earliest times armies incorporated offensive and defensive weapons and strategies.Progress in the development of the one was followed by corresponding improvements inthe other. So more deadly swords led to the creation of better armor. Improvements infortifications led to more imaginative m eans of breaching and scaling castle wa lls.

In modern times, the development of the tank led to the invention of a range ofantitank weapons. And similarly, the development of the bomber called "the ultimateweapon"led to the introduction of radar systems capable of tracking its flight, and to theuse of antiaircraft guns and fighter pla nes to shoot it down.In large part, the history of warfare is thus the story of competition between offenseand defense. Som etim es, the balance of advantage has been with attack, and at othertimes, with defense; at others, defense and offense h ave been so keenly matched tha t otherthings being eq ual, aggressor and defender fought them selves to a standstill.During two world wars, Britain used both active and passive means to defeat Germanaggression. In 1915, German policy makers hoped that the deployment of the Zeppelinwould paralyze London and have a decisive impact on mo rale. For the first time ever, myfriends, civilians were the indiscriminate targets of attack from the air. Initially, theGerman Zeppelin offensive appeared to achieve its aim; war production fell and moraleplummeted as Londoners took refuge in improvised shelters, including the LondonUnderground. But within a short time Britain developed the first integrated air defensesystem, this was in World War I, comprising antiaircraft guns and fighter planes, an earlywarning system , and civil defense. And so, on 2 September 1916, B ritish forces sho tdown one Zeppelin. A few days later they shot down three. And by the first of October,about a month later, British forces had effectively neutralized the Zeppelin threat. Oneeyewitness recorded: "Blazing from the end to end like an enormous cigar, the Zeppelincanted over and sank nose down-towards the earth. Sounds of cheering came over theair.. .the Zeppelins had suddenly becom e prey to the defences."

In the interwar period, as Hitler rearmed, fears about the v ulnerability of L ondon in afuture conflict grew again. Winston Churchill described the capital as "the greatest targetin the world...a valuable fat cow tied up to attract the beasts of prey," while StanleyBaldwin, our then-Prime Minister, emphasized our vulnerability to air attack byfamously declaring: "The Bomber will always get through." Beware of what politicianssay. But when war cam e, the German bomber, although much improved since the days ofthe Great Wa r, did not always get thro ugh . D uring the crucial mon ths of Au gust andSeptember 1940, 600 were shot down, either by British fighter pilots, or by ground

Downloadedby[46.7

9.2.1

77]at14:2715July2013


5/12

Deterrence is Not Enough: Security Requirements for the 21" Century 213

batteries. As a consequence, Hitler abandoned his plans for invasion. It was the Nazis'first defeat, and it assured the survival of an independent Britain. The example proved anhistoric turning point. Credit for victory in the Battle of Britain has understandably goneto the "Few"the young pilots of the Spitfires and Hurricanes of whom it is stillimpossible to think without being moved by their courage and self-sacrifice. But it isimportant to remember that their triumph was only possible because they were part of acomprehensive air defense system.When Hitler abandoned his invasion plans and switched to the bombing of industrialcenters and cities, Britain 's air defenses were again adapted and m odified. W ith the help ofAmerican technology they were further strengthened to meet the challenge of theV -l on e is going through the process, a new attack weapon, a new defense, a new attackweapon to get over that defense and a new defense to get over that attack weaponapilotless aircraft powered by a pulse jet, the forerunner of today's cruise missile. Just afew weeks after a government minister announced that the battle for the defense of Londonhad been wo n, som e 10,000 V-l s were fired on the city, and mo re than 2000 hit theirtarget. At first the V-l achieved a high success rate, causing more than a millionLondoners to be evacuated from their homes and many thousands of casualties. But fiveweeks after the first V-ls rained down on London, half of them were being intercepted orshot down, and this figure rose to 90% by the 11th week of the V-l campaign. Moralerose as the public came to realize that its greatest fearthat the capital was defenseless inthe face of such attacksthat fear was groundless, and that once again the Nazi challengewas being seen off.No defense, however was available against the V-2 rocket, the world's first tacticalballistic missile, a fact which made an inevitable impact on public morale and confidence.Because the rockets flew faster than sound there was no warning of an attack: A gapwould suddenly appear in a row of houses to be followed by the sound of an explosion.The rockets caused more than 21,000 casualties before British soldiers overran the V-2launch sites in Holland.Even so, had Hitler realized the potential of the rocket program earlier, the weaponscould have played havoc w ith the preparations for the A llied invasion of France. An d therewere also plans to use the V -2 as the second stage of a rocket capable of striking Am erica.

Cold War StrategyMutually Assured DestructionThe strategic environment was again transformed by the development of long-rangenuclear weapons during the early stages of the Cold War. It was now argued that thistechnological change meant that deterrence was henceforth the only rational basis foreffective defense. Here surely, the argument ran, were weapons of such immensedestructive force, so devastating in their consequences and so unstoppable in theirdelivery, that once these were possessed by both Cold War adversaries, mutual deterrence,and so peace, was assured.It followed or seemed to follow that no step should be taken to protect thecivilian population or industry from a nuclear attack since this would undermine the verythreat upon which hum an survival depended. Each superpower had effectively taken theothe r's population hostage, or so many of the W est 's influential strategic thinkers argued.As a conseq uence, vulnerability to the most lethal weapons that the world has ever knownwas viewed as the key to preserving the human species in the Nuclear Age. This entirelynovel view for no one had ever before suggested that it was a good idea to be defenselessagainst armed attackwas expressed as the doctrine of mutually assured destruction,otherwise effectively, pointedly known as MAD. Accordingly, the well-placed advocates

Downloadedby[46.7

9.2.1

77]at14:2715July2013


6/12

214 M. Thatcher

of M AD re sisted all attemp ts to reopen th e question of researching and deploying defensesagainst missile attack.I don't want to revisit the controversies that once raged over such matters, but it isworth recording that although nuclear deterrence was rightly at the core of Westernstrategy, it is worth recalling that we never wholly relied upon it. The threat of massiveretaliation proved unrealistic and unwieldy in some of the scenarios which political andmilitary leaders were actually obliged to contemplate. So, various modifications andrevisions were made to give greater flexibility and credibility to Western strategy.Nevertheless, MAD remained influential; it shaped the climate in which military plannersthought about preventing a war with the Soviet Union and most relevant for us now, ithelped pave the way for the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.The Strategic Defense InitiativeAccording to Secretary of State William Rogers, one purpose of that treaty was to serveas a kind of teaching aid to enable the Soviet leadership to understand the logic of assuredmutual vulnerability and to signal their belief in it. By the 1980s it was becoming clearthat the Soviet leaders were slow learners. They had signed the treaty but had obviousdifficulty in grasping that the best interests of the Soviet Union lay in its vulnerability toU.S. missiles! They took industrial and civil defense seriously, and invested heavily as wenow know in the development of defense against missile attack which was in clear breachof the T reaty.

No fundamental change in Western strategic thinking occurred until the visionaryspeech of Ronald Reagan of 23 March 1983which we all rememberin which heopened up the prospect of using advanced technology to destroy enem y missiles in flight.The intense opposition which that speech aroused in certain circles in the West is areflection of the widely held belief that defense against missile attack would underminedeterrence and thus make a thermonuclear war more likely. During that period, havingconsidered the matter, I came to believe exactly the opposite: namely, that properlyconfigured defenses against missile attack could strengthen deterrence by protectingAmerica's retaliatory capacity.

What I did not realize at the timewhat I think probably no one then realizedwasthe profound impact of the SDI program upon events within the Soviet Union. It wasindeed profound. M r. Gorbachev came to see me at Chequers . . . and said after we had hadabout an hour's conversation and hadn't gotten to the point of why he had come. Andthen it came out: he said, "Would you please try to persuade President Reagan not to goahead with the SDI program? " And so I said "No,"very useful wordand I said, "N o, asa matter of fact, we have a few very specialist scientists with particular specialities, andthey have already been offered to President Reagan," and I think some of them cameover . . . And I said this about Prime Minister Gorbachev: He didn't press the matter anyfurther. And when he had gone about three hours laterwe'd discussed a lot of otherthings as well I telephoned to Ronald Re aga n... This man [Gorbachev] had been willingand able to discuss things in a way no other Soviet leader had. They normally came witha sheaf of papers, any question you'd ask, they would look what was the proper answer;they don't depart from it. They shuffled through their sheaf of papers, they brought out asheet of paper; whether it contained the right answer or not was totally and utterlyirrelevant.

You could not actually conduct a debate about anything realistic with them. Not soMr. Gorbachev; he did have a small notebook which he looked atI could see he hadwritten certain points in itbut he was up-to-date and he could argue. We had about a

Downloadedby[46.7

9.2.1

77]at14:2715July2013


7/12

Deterrence is Not E nough: Security Requirements for the 21st Century 215

four-hour meeting, which I think was one of the most profitable because for me again itwas getting to understand their psychology and them getting to understand ours. I got onthe telephone at the end of the meeting and said to Ronald Reagan: "This, I think, is aman we can do business with ," because he was quite different than any other. I think thiswas partly, my friends, because . . . the advances in comm unications mean t that theSoviet Union could no longer keep the truth away from their people, somehow theywould get the truth. It may have been by word of mouth, it may have been by documentsbeing handed from one to another, it may have been by listening to BBC world overseasservices or some other. They were beginning to learn the truth and that of course made afundamental difference to the power structure of the Soviet Union.But what happened after that meeting was that recognizing that it could not competein a qualitative arms race with the United States without modernizing its economy, theSoviet leadership, under both Andropov and then under Gorbachev, set in train a series ofeconom ic and po litical reforms. These reforms, like Perestroika, had the aim of preserving

Soviet communismthey knew they had to modify it, but they modified it to preservethe essential message, the essential control of the people's lives under Communismbutit led to loss of political control. Quite remarkable, remarkable for the speed with whichit came. The forces of reform once unleashed proved beyond the leadership's power todirect, and this led ultimately to the collapse of the ideology which the Soviet leaderssought to protect, and the collapse of the unlamented empire created in its nam e. A nd alsowhat we could not have foreseen, the collapse of the whole Soviet Union; 14 statesbecame independent. It was extraordinary. It would be very difficult to achieve it bymilitary means, if not almost impossible. But truth is a very powerful weapon againstthose who try to conceal it.Thus, SDIwidely criticized on the grounds that it had threatened to undermine thepeacehelped foreshorten the life of an implacable adversary, bringing an end to the ColdWar and giving millions of citizens in Central Europe and Russia the chance of freedomand a better future. I do not know of any greater historical iron y.. .unless it be the fact thatthe ideas embodied in SDI have not been applied, while the old ABM Treaty is stillrevered as the cornerstone of stability!I might just hesitate here for a moment about Russia. We did get the collapse; whatwe had not sorted out was what was likely to happen after thatand how those peoplewho had not known a scintilla of freedom, not even freedom of speech, and responsibility

for your ow n actions was virtually forbiddenhow a people with no resp onsibility, nofreedom of speech, could turn around to building an enterprise society, acceptingresponsibility and taking decisions. And as we have learned, while you got the collapse ofcommunist stateswhere you get a certain amount of collapse also in China, though notmuch therethose dictatorship states that have never known a rule of law or law-governed liberty, find it very difficult to come to freedom. Because if you are not governedby law, you are governed by a mafia and you are governed by criminals. And that is thereal difficulty still with Russia at this moment. And what happens is [when] the mafiatakes over, the most difficult thing to build up is the rule of law. We don't know howdifficult it is; people came to America with a rule of law. The Commonwealth had beenages old before they came, we had it developed according to the will of the people,accord ing to the will of the best jud ges, according to absolutely fair adm inistration and itis still the greatest gift of all. So we still have enormous troubles, I'm afraid, with theSoviet Union.

So let me recap at this mom ent. While deterrence is still necessary, it is not enough.During the Cold War, an era in which military technology greatly favored the offensive,deterrence worked. Although there were some close calls, it was credible enough in the

Downloadedby[46.7

9.2.1

77]at14:2715July2013


8/12

216 M. Thatcher

circumstances to deter an attack. And it is clear that two factors helped in thi s. Fir st,although the Soviet leadership remained faithful to an expansionist ideology until thevery end, it was mostly . . . not adventurous. It preferred to pursue its aims throughsupport for proxy forces or terrorists and through low-intensity conflict by means ofsubversion, propaganda, and disinformation. The men in the Kremlin believed to the endthat the inexorable forces of history assured their ultimate triumphso they could affordto wait. Never block the truth away from people; they will never get the right answer ifyou do.Second ly, during the Cold Wa r, we were in the rare situation of having to deal with asingle adversary whom we came to know, one whose reactions and behavior we couldoften anticipate, and with whom we could usually comm unicate effectively. E ven so therewere misunderstandings and some mom ents of acute tension in super power relations.

Post Cold War ThreatsProliferation and Its ConsequencesWith the end of the Cold War the whole security equation changed. As Soviet powerbroke dow n, so did the con trol it exercised, however fitfully and irresponsibly, over therogue states like Syria, Iraq and Libya. These have always been kept under the yoke of theSoviet system; that control broke down. They have in effect been released to commitwhatever mischief they wish, without bothering to check with their arms supplier andbank manager.One of the most alarming aspects of this transformed picture is the ease and speedwith which Third World states have begun to acquire the weapons of mass destruction andthe mean s to deliver them. In 1995 the then Director of the Central Intelligence stated thatno cou ntry, other than major declared pow ers, would in the next 15 years acquire aballistic missile that could strike America. Alas, it now appears that he was mistaken.Indeed, it is evident that proliferation is accelerating so rapidly that our depletedintelligence services are having difficulty in keeping track. Th is is partly the result ofcooperation and trade between states, and partly due to the sale of military technology tothird parties by Russia and China, both of which continue to modernize their own missileforces.It is also due to the astonishing ease with which many of the necessary technologiescan now be acquired from the West. The German scientists wh o built the V -l and V-2

rockets, and the outstanding British and American scientists who developed the atomicweapon, had to overcome huge scientific and technological problems. Today, all that isrequired, I am told, to build a missile or weapon of mass destruction isand this isslightly exaggerated but basically truea credit card, a shopping list, and a personalcomputer. Some of the necessary technologies can be bought over the counter, some overthe internet. So-called 'secre ts' can be obtained from technical books and magazines easilyavailable from American booksho ps and libraries. According to a recent majority reportfrom a Senate subcommittee on the problems arising from missile proliferation, muchuseful information can also be obtained from scientific institutions anxious to share thefruits of their research with mankind. NASA, for example, welcomes visitors to itshomepage on the website with the following message: "The Internet puts the vasttechnical resources of the United Statesand those of other countriesat the disposal ofanyone with a telephone line." The report lists a range of research papers obtainablethrough NASA, which would be of undoubted use to those with ambitions to join theclub of nations possessing missiles and weapons of mass destruction. All of that is inaddition to technologies that may be purchased from China (probably the biggestsupplier), from Russia, and from North Korea.

Downloadedby[46.7

9.2.1

77]at14:2715July2013


9/12


Although it is clearly getting easier, and cheaper, to build ballistic missiles and thevarious warheads with which they may be armed, skilled technicians and engineers arestill needed to com plete the task. But here again, the W est is abundant with its gifts. Astate bent on acquiring or developing missiles or weapons of mass destruction can equipits technicians and engineers with the relevant knowledge and skills by the simpleexpedient of having them enroll in Western universities. I was amazed to learn recentlythat since the Gulf W ar, the United States has granted visas to more than 140,000students and their dependents from North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and China. Ahigh proportion of these students are known to have pursued degrees in science andengineering, although no attempt is made to m onitor their subsequent careers.Not surprisingly, my friends, the Rumsfeld Commission, which was recently askedby Congress to report on the missile threat against the United States, has concluded and Iquote: "Nations that want to develop ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destructioncan now obtain extensive technical assistance from outside sources. Foreign assistance isnot a wild ca rd. It is a fact."It is indeed a fact tha t the freedom and openness of Am erican and British societyassists those to whom openness and freedom are anathema and who would like to snuffout any glimmer of freedom in their own societies.It is a fact, too although a curious one that the sale of small arm s to gunenthusiasts or sportsmen produces a far greater sense of moral outrage in Western society,than is produced by the sale to psychotic despots of weaponry capable of killingthousands.According to Jane 's Strategic Weapon s Systems there are now an estimated 13,500missiles in 26 countries, with as many as 30 new types of missile under development.Moreover, as far as warhead technology is concerned, a recent report from LancasterUniversity suggests that 18 countries possess nuclear, chemical, or biologicalcapabilities.The authoritative report of the Rumsfeld Commission is cautious in reachingjudgement but it finds that within five years of a decision to acquire such a capability,North Korea a nd Iran would be able to inflict major destruction on Am erica. In the case ofIraq the period would be 10 years. But for much of that time the United S tates mig ht notknow that such a decision had been taken. Although the C om mission does not say so, itis clear that for reasons of distance the danger is maturing even more quickly for Europethan for here.The Rumsfeld Com mission concludes:

First, the threat posed by these emerging capabilities is broader, more mature andevolving m ore rapidly than reported by the intelligence services.Secondly, the intelligence service s' ability to provide accurate and timely estimates ofmissile threats is being eroded, and the warning time of missile deployment that theU.S. can expect is being reduced.And thirdly, nations are increasingly able to conceal important elements in theirmissile and weapons programmes and are strongly motivated to do so.So what is to be done?First, I hadn't brought this into the text but it is obvious; you have to deal withcountries like Iraq and Saddam Hussein more effectively and decisively than now .

Downloadedby[46.7

9.2.1

77]at14:2715July2013


10/12

218 M. Thatcher

It would be convenient if we could rely on the weapons and responses developedduring the Cold War to prevent future wars, and could do so with confidence. But that'snot possible. In the coming decades we will have to deal with a range of potentialadversaries and scenarios, and what will work in one case will not work in all.To successfully deter an enemy requires some knowledge of how that enemy is likelyto react in particular circumstances. Psychology is always important in politics and indefense and in important decisions. That in turn requires some insight into theirbackground and c ulture.It is also important, my friends, that potential adversaries know and understandsomething about the nature of Western societies, not least our capacity to resistaggression in spite of our habitual preference for comprom ise. I say "our" because it isAmerican and British; I have no preference for compromise, as you know. Suchknowledge reduces the risk of war arising from miscalculation. They got it wrong in theFalklands W ar as well as the conflict in the Gulf; those both remind us that dictators are

prone to underestimate the resolve of democratic states to respond vigorously toaggression, provided we keep all the equipment to do so. Our strategic inte ntions mu sttherefore b e signalled unambiguously if conflict is to be avoided. And that is our purpose:strong defense . . . is to avoid conflict by deterring. We must not give the impression thatwe in the West have so indulged ourselves on the fruits of peace that we are incapable ofprotecting our vital interests.In the case of rogue states I do not believe that the conditions required for deterrenceare presently me t. M oreover, matters are likely to worsen as the military capabilities ofthese states grow.Indeed, we only have to pose some difficult questions to realize the limitations of aresponse based purely on the threat of retaliation. For example, would it be worth theAmerican president's time trying to find the basis for common action if it was alsoknown that our adversary's missiles could strike London, Paris, or Bonn? And wouldW ashington even contemplate a military response if a Middle Eastern ally was swallowedup by a state with the capacity to target New York with a nuclear missile?Arms Control and the ABM TreatyInstead of posing the difficult questions, Western governments have placed great store ondiplomatic attempts to discourage the flow of military technology and to bring stabilityto the international order.

Restricting the flow of technology through the Missile Technology Control Regime,to which we'v e already made reference, and by other formal mean s should mo st certainlybe tried, even if these attempts do nothing to dampen the desire of the rogue states andothers to acquire missiles and their warheads. Some countries may be unwilling toparticipate in restricting the flow of technology; some may participate but turn a blindeye to violations by exporters. In addition there is the dual use problem, as you know,and the near impo ssibility of full and effective m onitorin g. Diplom atic m easures maymake the acquisition of the relevant technologies a little harder and more expensive toobtain. But as a former assistant director of the United States Arms Agency has noted:"Wh ile the M issile Technology Control Regim e may be a valuable tool in slowingproliferation it is incapable of stopping it."

Moreover, the benefits of trying to deal with the problem through arms reduction orlimitation talks are also likely to be modest, and could even present a number of traps tothe unwary. An arms treaty can be valuable in codifying or lending formal expression toan understanding between nations about the levels of weaponry to be deployed, but it

Downloadedby[46.7

9.2.1

77]at14:2715July2013


11/12


cannot of itself produce that understanding. I know of no miraculous diplomatic mea ns bywhich a nation that do es n't w ant to be disarmed can be stripped of its weapons. What maybe disarmed, unfortunately, is public opinion. But there are times when the public shouldbe alarmed, not assuaged. To give the public a sense of security w hen this is not justifiedby the facts is the very negation of leadersh ip.Although the complexities of arms control are legion and may be difficult to grasp,the underlying realities are not. States which present no problem to their neighbors willgladly sign and will abide by the rule s. But revisionist statesthe ones that want toredraw the boundaries on the mapare likely either to refuse to sign, or to sign but getaround the provisions of the treaty, or simply to cheat.Arm s talks can have one further defect: The agreements reached may c ontinue to exertan influence long after the circumstances w hich called them into being have vanished. A narms treaty can end up by damaging the interests it was intended to serve. I suspect thatsome of you may have guessed the particular treaty which prompts these remarks: the

ABM Treaty.As it happens, the treaty did not achieve some of its original purposes: It did notproduce a slowdown in the building of Soviet long range missiles; nor did it prevent theSoviets investing large sums in developing ballistic missile defense. Nevertheless, it waspossible to understand the case for the treaty when there was a single military threat. Butthose days are gone. So what conceivable sense does it make to keep to a treaty thatensures that the United States and its allies remain vulnerable to multiple threats? Yet theUnited States government has confirmed its commitment to a treaty which makesvulnerability a formal obligation, and has signednow, let me be accurate about this. Itis difficult to know whether we have renewed that Treaty when it expired; what we havedone is, as a lawyer, I would say not renew but sign something called a memorandum ofunderstanding, which isn't the same thing as signing a treaty, something different whichenlarges the numb er of signatories by including Belarus, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan. This islikely to make withdrawal from or revision of the treaty more complex and difficultbecause yo u're not only dealing with one person, yo u're dealing with four. Thepreservation of this Cold War relic is bizarre, and I am somew hat baffled when spokesmenfor the United S tates government describe it as the cornerstone of strategic stability.To continue to regard strategic relations between the United States and Russia,important though they are, as the centerpiece of American security policy in this way isto ignore important respects in which the world has chang ed. It is the political equivalentof continuing to dance the waltz when the orchestra has changed to one of those moderndances in which there are no set steps and all who wish to participate may do so. Nowthat's a bit of an exaggeration, but you've got to get a little bit light with these things.I believe that the case for the deploym ent of a global ballistic missile defense systemis now overwhelming. The requirements of such a system are also clear: It must becapable of providing protection for America, its armed forces and its allies also needprotection against a limited or unauthorized attack, w hile strengthening deterrence againstthe now-reduced threat of a major missile offensive. The deployment of such a systemshould generally dampen the impulse to acquire offensive systems, and contribute toregional stability by reducing the risk of surprise attack.Having followed the progress of research into ballistic missile defense during the 15years since President Rea gan 's landmark speech, it seems clear that a global system wouldinclude space-borne sensors and interceptors in order to target missiles in the early stagesof their flight, as well as ground-based systems. I understand that the U.S. may beconsidering, however, a less expensive system; I read this recently. If you're going to

Downloadedby[46.7

9.2.1

77]at14:2715July2013


12/12

220 M. Thatcher

have a system , have the best. And I believe that N AT O p rovides the m ost appropriateorganizational means by which America's European allies can make their contribution.C o n c l u s i o nTo sum up,My friends, human ingenuity is such that a way will always be found to counter newwea pons, however destructive or "sm art." Equally, ways will be found to modify thoseweapons so that they in turn can "outsmart" the latest improvement to the defense. Thecom petition betw een offense and defense did not end with the advent of the nuclearmissile, as some strategists appeared to believe, any more than it did with the Zeppelin.With the improved perspective which the end of the Cold War permits we can see that therenunciation of the means to defend our cities against missiles was, in historical terms, anaberration. But it did work at the time.

Remaining vulnerable to Soviet missiles was the consequence, as we look back, of aflawed logic, but my friends, there is no logic in a policy decision that ensures that NorthAmerica and Europe remain vulnerable to missiles targeted at them by the tyrannical andruthless leaders of volatile and unstable regimes. That's the new factor; a new factorrequires a new response. The absence of systems capable of defending Western citiesagainst missile attack will be seen as an incentive for those leaders to make theacquisition of missiles and weapons of mass destruction their top priority.Conversely, the deployment of a global ballistic missile defense system coulddampen the desire to acquire those weapons by virtue of its ability to frustrate their use.In an increasingly unstable, and fast moving world, such a system possesses a stabilizing

poten tial; withou t ballistic m issile defense it w ill become much m ore difficult forAm erica to remain true to her best traditions of international eng agem ent.For these reasons the ABM Treaty does not enhance our security in the comingcentury; rather, it seems to represent a constraint upon America's ability to protect hercities, her civilian population, her armed forces, her interests, and her allies. A vulnerablegiant attracts tormentors who will become bolder as they see that the giant has deniedhimself the means of protection.This thought clearly inspired the cartoonist who illustrated the cover [of] the Senatereport to which I referred earlier in my remarks. The illustration shows Uncle Sam as

Gulliver newly arrived in Lilliput and chained to the ground as the Lilliputians clamberdisrespectfully all over him. The comparison is apposite, except in one respect: Thebonds which held down Swift's fictional hero were tied by the Lilliputians, rather than byGulliver himself, which is what we are doing.I am a great admirer and friend of America, one who is mindful of the enormousbenefits my country, and the countries of the free world, has enjoyed as a result of itsfriendship with the United States. I continue to believe that American influence in theworld is crucial but that it may diminish in the absence of effective global defensesagainst missile attack. As matters stand, Americaand so the Westis in danger ofentering a new century with a strategy designed to counter a foe that no longer exists,

with notions of deterrence designed to meet the requirements of a world that has changed,and constrained by a treaty that bears no relation to reality. As I have argued in the past,the risk is that thousands of lives could be lost in an attack which foresight and prudencemight have prevented.My friends, it is a risk too far.

Downloadedby[46.7

9.2.1

77]at14:2715July2013

thatcher onsecurity 07

Documents