National Missile Defence (Hansard, 17 May 2000)

§ Mr. Mike Gapes (Ilford, South)

The proliferation of ballistic missiles is a matter of growing concern, especially because they are capable of delivering weapons of mass destruction—nuclear, biological and chemical. The United States has identified North Korea, Iraq and Iran as states which, within a few years, could deploy ballistic missiles capable of reaching US territory. We can argue about how quickly that will happen, but we can assume that, before too long, several states will be able to reach US territory with weapons of mass destruction. There will also be a similar concern in Europe.

How do we respond? It is worth remembering that, for 50 years, Europe and the United States have been within range of Russian or Soviet ballistic missiles. We have relied on a policy of deterrence to counter that threat, without the need for national missile defences. Why does the prospect of much smaller quantities of ballistic missiles in less militarily significant states cause such alarm in the United States, and why does it appear to be placing in question the basis of the deterrence policy that has been in existence for many years?

In July last year, President Clinton signed into law the Missile Defence Act, which declared a policy to deploy a national missile defence as soon as technologically possible. Perhaps the Minister will inform us whether the Government believe, as the United States appears to believe, that the traditional policy of deterrence is no longer adequate to deter states such as Iraq.

If a rogue state wished to kill large numbers of Americans, it would be far more likely to choose methods of delivery other than ballistic missiles. A light aircraft spraying anthrax over New York, a suitcase bomb or some other means of delivery would be easier, cheaper and probably more effective.

National missile defence is aimed at tackling one means by which a state might deliver a weapon of mass destruction. However, that means is probably one of the least likely. Such a defence could not work against a spray tank or a nuclear bomb on the back of a truck or in a suitcase.

Furthermore, one must question whether it is technically feasible to hit a bullet with a bullet, which is what we are discussing. It is easy to deploy countermeasures to a national missile defence, such as dummy warheads and chaff. Therefore, we not only have to hit a bullet with a bullet: we have to hit the right bullet with a bullet. Nor is it sufficient to deploy a national missile defence on the basis of a handful of tests. The defence must be the weapon that works perfectly at the time of the enemy's choosing and the first time that it is used for real. Otherwise, it will have failed. How many weapon systems have achieved that standard of success?

There is widespread concern throughout the world as well as in parts of the United States that the American Congress and Administration are rushing ahead with this technology before it is properly tested and that there is a political and commercial momentum behind the project, which is becoming so strong that all the 106WH unfavourable technical shortcomings and practical arguments are being ignored or glossed over. Let us remember that if a single nuclear warhead landed on any American city, it would represent a massive failure of security policy.

Of course, such a defence will be massively expensive. The Pentagon estimates that to deploy and maintain a single site with 20 launchers in Alaska would cost $26.6 billion. I wonder whether that money could be better spent on conflict prevention, non-proliferation strategies and conventional capabilities that are already proven, rather than on this fanciful technological fix.

We can question whether the system is necessary to deal with rogue states, whether it will work as required and whether it is appropriate. It is certainly not a solution to the threat of the delivery of weapons of mass destruction. My main concern, however, is about the implications of the programme for the future of arms control.

Under the first stage of national missile defence, the United States wants to deploy 100 interceptors in Alaska and to upgrade its early warning radars, including that at Fylingdales in Yorkshire. Even that limited deployment would require an amendment to the 1972 anti-ballistic missile treaty. It would require the elimination of the article I ban on nationwide defences and the revision of article III, which places limits on the allowed deployment areas. Article IX of the treaty prevents the deployment of ABM systems or components outside of national territory, which suggests that an upgrade of Fylingdales would require that article to be amended. Perhaps the Government could clarify or confirm whether that is the case.

Even the first stage of a national missile defence requires some serious amendments to the treaty. Amending article I, which forbids the deployment of missile defences to defend the territory of a country, would break the very principle on which the treaty is based. If we then moved to the second stage of national missile defence deployment, which would involve 250 missiles at each of two sites, along with further radars, further amendments to the ABM treaty would be required.

Let us be clear. The ABM treaty is intended to prohibit national missile defence. It permits only 100 launchers to defend a single site. Therefore, what the United States proposes is fundamentally at odds with the entire purpose of the treaty. If we amend the treaty to permit, rather than prohibit, national missile defence and then seek a further expansion of those defences, at some point it will cease to be an arms control treaty; it will become an arms expansion treaty.

Last month, in a welcome development, the Russian Duma voted by 288 votes to 131 to ratify the START 2—strategic arms reduction talks—treaty, seven years after it was signed and four years after its ratification by the US Senate. That was a welcome achievement by the newly elected President Putin—it was something that his predecessor President Yeltsin, had been unable to obtain.

At the non-proliferation treaty review conference earlier this month, the five nuclear weapons states, including the United Kingdom, said that they were looking forward to the conclusion of START III as soon as possible while preserving and strengthening the ABM Treaty as a cornerstone of strategic stability and as a basis for further reductions of strategic offensive weapons. 107WH Can the Minister confirm whether that means that the Government support the ABM treaty as it is constituted, or do they support an amendment to the treaty? How do the Government envisage strengthening the ABM treaty? Strengthening a treaty that forbids national missile defence should not mean amending it to allow such defence. Do the Government share that view or is their interpretation different?

The Americans are trying to persuade the Russians to accept the amendment of the ABM treaty in return for more favourable terms under a possible future START 3 agreement, although so far Russia is refusing. Indeed, when Russia recently decided to ratify START 2, article 2 of the Duma resolution stated that the Russian Federation would feel bound by the treaty only if the ABM treaty remained intact. In an address to the Duma, President Putin said: If the United States withdraws from the ABM treaty following ratification of START-2 and 1997 agreements, Russia will pull out of the entire system of agreements on strategic nuclear forces as well as START-2 and will carry out its own nuclear deterrence policy. That is a strong statement and there is no reason to believe that President Putin was playing to the gallery when he made it. Indeed, I believe that it reflects Russia's national position.

At the end of last month, George W. Bush, the Republican candidate for the United States presidency, said that, if he became President, he would reserve the right to proceed to a much more extensive missile defence programme than any currently under discussion in Washington. From a Russian perspective, that surely adds further to anxiety about national missile defence. Why should Russia do a deal which may well be torn up next year by an incoming American President?

The Russians object to national missile defence for the same reason that the United Kingdom wants missile defences to be restricted, and believe that national missile defence preserves the credibility of their deterrent forces. If the Russians start to think that national missile defence can shoot down their warheads, they will want more of those warheads to overwhelm those defences. That is what the previous Conservative Government argued when they deployed more warheads on Trident than were deployed on Polaris, saying that that was necessary to overwhelm Soviet missile defences around Moscow.

Will the Foreign Office ask the Ministry of Defence how it will respond if Russia starts to deploy its own national missile defence? Will the MOD be forced to consider reversing the Government's welcome cuts in warhead numbers announced as part of the strategic defence review?

Another response to national missile defence could be to rely increasingly on launch on warning, or, in other words, launching a retaliatory strike on detecting an attack, rather than waiting for incoming missiles to land. That is the hair-trigger posture, which, as anyone who knows anything about strategic nuclear matters is aware, is inherently dangerous because it heightens the risk of accidental nuclear war. Indeed, for many years, people have been trying to find ways of moving away from those hair-trigger dangers.

Incredibly, documents published in the most recent edition of the useful American publication The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists suggest that the United States is 108WH encouraging Russia to maintain a hair-trigger alert to allay Russian fears about national missile defence. The Americans say that they plan only a limited national missile defence which cannot challenge the credibility of Russian nuclear forces. However, Russia believes that that limited national missile defence is only the thin end of the wedge and that, at some later date, it will be expanded to provide a capability that will be effective against its nuclear forces as well as those of so-called rogue states.

Let us imagine that the United States deploys its national missile defence. What happens when, at a later date, scientists say that they are able to do more, and ask for missiles, radars and satellites so that they can work to achieve invulnerability against Russia as well as Korea. Is it credible that an American President in those circumstances would refuse to do that? He would be denounced and people would cry, "Why do we insist on invulnerability against North Korea, but accept vulnerability to Russia?" The argument about the thin end of the wedge is therefore persuasive.

If Russia does not compromise and the US proceeds with unilateral deployment of national missile defence, thereby abrogating the ABM treaty, what happens then? Russia has made clear that the START process would stop. It might not be able to afford to re-arm, but it would not feel bound by the START treaties. Verifiable reductions in Russian nuclear weapons would be a thing of the past and Russia's launch-on-warning posture would be strengthened, as it would fear that it would lose weapons if it did not use them. China will expand its nuclear forces, taking further cuts in global nuclear weapons off the agenda.

The comprehensive test ban treaty would be threatened because Russia and China in particular might insist on developing and testing new warheads that are more capable of penetrating the new missile defences. Agreeing the fissile material cut-off treaty would be more difficult, as China has already said that national missile defence will oblige it to continue producing fissile material for more weapons. Therefore, there would be no ABM treaty, the START process would reverse, the comprehensive test ban would unwind and there would be no progress on the fissile material cut-off treaty. The future of the nonproliferation treaty itself would appear uncertain. The nuclear weapon states committed themselves in article VI to act in good faith in disarmament measures. However, they would be seen to have reneged on that and, as a result, more states might consider nuclear weapons of their own and the whole non-proliferation regime would be under threat. Indeed, India and Pakistan might be even less likely to join the non-proliferation treaty.

There is still time for the United States and Russia to do a deal, but, given the forthcoming US elections, the prospects are not good. We must therefore start to consider what will happen if there is no deal and the US withdraws from the ABM treaty. Under those circumstances, would the Government co-operate with whatever the Americans ask for on radar upgrades and so on? Are we prepared passively to accept the new reality because it appears inevitable, even though we may not like it? Do we just sit and watch all the arms control treaties unravel, our own security situation worsen slowly and our relations with Russia deteriorate, damaging European security?

109WH The issue has the potential to become the most divisive in NATO for 20 years. I do not want to go back to the situation in the 1980s, as those of us involved in the debate at that time know how damaging it was to the cohesion of the NATO alliance. The United States says that it will consult its allies before deciding to proceed. It is time for all NATO allies forcefully to make our views known. Do we share the views of Javier Solana, the EU High Representative, who states that national missile defence could be decoupling? Do we believe that it is worth jeopardising the future of the NATO alliance, European security, strategic arms control and security on the planet in the hope of, or aspiration to, some misguided technological fix? Clearly, we must say no to that and convince the United States that it must not go ahead with abrogating the ABM treaty.

§ The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office(Mr. Keith Vaz)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, South (Mr. Gapes) for giving us the opportunity to debate this important issue. I pay tribute to his long-standing involvement in international affairs, to his close interest in nuclear issues and to the passionate and eloquent way in which he presented his case.

I know that the United States interest in the possible deployment of a national missile defence system has engaged the close interest of many hon. Members over the past few weeks and months. The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr. Hain) responded in some detail to concerns raised on the issue during a debate in Westminster Hall on 3 May on the non-proliferation treaty review conference. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence also set out the Government's views on the matter in some detail in the House during the defence debate on 4 May. I know that the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs is also examining the issue in some detail, as part of its on-going inquiry into weapons of mass destruction.

I think that it is fair to say, therefore, that there has been no shortage of recent debate and discussion on the issue. For that reason, I apologise in advance if anything that I have to say is familiar to hon. Members who have followed the issue closely. I have no dramatic statements to make in response to my hon. Friend's initiative. He will not be surprised to hear that the Government's approach to the issue has not changed during the past fortnight. As my fellow Minister of State said on 3 May, and in his speech in New York to the NPT review conference, we recognise that United States interest in national missile defence raises some complex issues. As has been evident from the debate, these of course go wider than the potential impact on the anti-ballistic missile treaty.

First, I shall focus on that question, which has been the starting point for this afternoon's debate. In expressing views on the ABM treaty, we have been careful to emphasise that it is primarily a matter for the parties to that treaty. As my hon. Friend knows, we are not such a party; that is an important distinction in international law, and one that we need to keep firmly in 110WH mind when debating this issue. It explains why we have not been, and will not be, directly involved in negotiations on the future of the treaty. It explains also why we have not offered proposals of our own on whether or how the treaty might be amended to accommodate the limited national missile defence system that the United States Administration has discussed with Russia.

Some hon. Members have asked, not only today but on previous occasions, whether, in the Government's view, the sort of NMD system that the US is considering would be compatible with the present terms of the ABM treaty. The US is not arguing that the system would be compatible; indeed, it has acknowledged that if it were to decide to proceed with the deployment of the sort of system that it currently envisages, amendments to the present terms of the treaty would be required. That is why the US has sought negotiations with Russia to that end.

Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin agreed at Cologne in June 1999 that the US and Russia should hold discussions on the ABM treaty and on further reductions in their respective nuclear arsenals. We welcomed that move. A number of rounds of such discussions have since taken place. It is no secret that these discussions have not been easy. However, it is not for us to attempt to intrude on them in an effort to be helpful. We have no intention of further complicating what are already highly complex and sensitive discussions. Neither the US nor Russia, nor anyone else, would thank us for that.

We have stressed consistently at the highest level that if the US decides to proceed with the deployment of a national missile defence system, we strongly hope that it will be in the context of agreement with Russia. We have made clear to both sides the importance that we continue to attach to the ABM treaty, and our wish to see it preserved. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister spelt that out clearly in his meeting last month in London with President Putin. He also made it clear that we hope that Russia will engage in earnest in negotiations with the US on this issue.

Russia cannot have failed to appreciate the strength of concerns in the US about the acquisition of long-range ballistic missiles by countries of concern. As both my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence and my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office have said, we understand these concerns. We do not believe that any responsible Government, including the Russian Government, can afford to ignore that threat. At the same time, we continue to value the strategic stability which the ABMT provides.

We believe that it is in Russia's interest, too, to see that stability is preserved. The Russians have made it clear that they wish to see significant cuts in US and Russian nuclear arsenals. So we believe that it is strongly in Russia's own interests to engage seriously with the US over its concerns about the long-range missile threat, and at the same time over the START 3 treaty.

The US Administration have said publicly that the President would have to decide whether to withdraw from the ABM treaty if the US decided to proceed with the deployment of a limited NMD system but had been unable to persuade Russia to agree modifications to the treaty to permit it.

111WH A second question raised by hon. Members over the past few weeks has concerned potential UK involvement in any US NMD system. Let me be clear about the present position. The US has not taken a decision to deploy such a system. It will not do so until later in the year, at the earliest. Only if and when that decision has been taken might the US Administration put any request to us in relation to the possible use of facilities in this country for NMD purposes.

Reports that we have already agreed to host elements of the system are simply untrue. We cannot reasonably be expected to say now how we might respond to such a request, if and when it comes, as we cannot know now in what circumstances such a request might be put to us. All that we can sensibly say is that we would naturally give any such request careful consideration, in the light of the circumstances at that time.

My hon. Friend talked about deterrence. Neither we nor the United States are about to give up our long-standing policy of deterrence, notwithstanding my hon. Friend's eloquence and passion. However, the question of so-called rogue states is more complex. Many are concerned in the United States that they themselves may 112WH in future be deterred from intervening in support of their allies by rogue states possessing long-range missiles and weapons of mass destruction. That concern requires consideration going far beyond long-standing thinking about traditional defence and deterrence. However, it does not mean giving up that fundamental tenet of our policy.

It has been suggested during debates over the recent past that there have been significant differences in the views expressed by Ministers and Departments. I am happy to have the opportunity to put the record straight. No such differences exist. I hope that what I have said will have made that position absolutely clear.

I reaffirm that progress on arms control remains one of the Government's highest priorities. As we have been discussing the issue, our officials have been working hard in New York for a successful outcome to the five-yearly non-proliferation treaty review conference. I am sure that the House will join me in expressing the hope that their efforts will meet with success.