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The new East Asian arms
race
By Stephen Blank
While
global attention remains focused on the war with Iraq,
other proliferation crises are still developing,
particularly in East Asia. One of these crises that has
lately slipped from attention is Taiwan's move toward
building missile defenses.
There is no doubt
that Taiwan faces a growing missile threat form China.
As the Pentagon announced in 2000, China has added and
is continuing to build about 50 new conventional
short-range ballistic missiles per year, all of which
are aimed at Taiwan. The most recent estimate was that
there were about 350 such missiles in southern and
southeastern China, primarily across the Taiwan Strait
in Fujian province targeted on Taiwan, and the number is
growing. Nor is this the only threat posed by China, as
it is undergoing a comprehensive modernization of all of
its armed forces, conventional and nuclear. This
modernization also includes the search for ways to
develop nuclear missile defenses and to use space for
military purposes.
Nor is China content to
threaten Taiwan and its putative protector, the United
States, with these short-range missiles alone. Japanese
reports stated that last December China successfully
tested a medium-range missile with multiple warheads.
This missile, the DF-21, could be fitted with either a
nuclear or conventional warhead and has a range of about
1,800 kilometers. If China can successfully test
missiles with and develop multiple independent warheads,
its deterrent capability and simultaneously its ability
to threaten Taiwan will grow considerably.
Taiwan regards this and other missile
developments as signaling China's intention to develop
multiple forms of threat against it while responding to
external pressure to curtail the construction of these
short-range missiles. Yet Taiwan's capability to
intercept short-range ballistic and other missiles is
limited at best. As a result, Taiwan has set up,
evidently with US encouragement, plans to establish a
comprehensive system of missile defense so that it can
"effectively defend against China's ballistic missiles"
by 2013. Preliminary plans envisage a three-step
program, beginning with the existing Patriot missile
defense system and long-range radar, moving through the
development of missile interceptors and sensors at sea,
to end with acquisition of airborne missile interceptors
and sensors.
This "action-reaction" sequence
looks like a missile race and as part of a larger arms
race to include conventional weapons as well. It also
takes place against the backdrop of rising tensions due
to North Korean proliferation and to China's ongoing
nuclear and conventional force modernization.
These developments, signifying the lessened
utility of such commitments as the Non-Proliferation
Treaty or the earlier Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM)
Treaty as restraints upon major military powers or
aspirants to that status, raise the specter of
generalized arms races throughout Northeast Asia as all
states concerned seek to build up both their offenses
and defense. These buildups definitely include offensive
missile capabilities and defenses against both
conventional and nuclear missiles including ballistic
and cruise missiles, and defenses against them. For
example, not just the United States but China and Russia
as well are each exploring missile defenses against
nuclear weapons and the utility of either weaponizing
space or using it as a medium through which their
missiles and missile defense systems will traverse.
North Korea's proliferation and China's steady
development also are obvious reasons behind Japan's move
to send up spy satellites to gather intelligence and
respond the pressure emanating from Tokyo's defense
community to tighten up Japan's missile defenses.
The linked issues of East Asian missile
development and nuclear proliferation do not admit of a
viable military solution. Yet the multilateral
accumulation of high-tech weapons and the move toward
weaponization of space creates in and of itself a tense
atmosphere that must be defused sooner rather than
later. It is clear that unless it is checked, North
Korea will soon be able to produce several nuclear
weapons. If China is indeed able to develop new missiles
with multiple independent re-entry vehicles (MIRV), its
offensive and deterrent capabilities will grow by an
order of magnitude. It will also probably then be able
to overwhelm Taiwan's theater missile defenses (TMD).
Since the ABM Treaty is dead and the United
States expects to start testing the components of its
missile defense system next year, it is also clear that
others will follow suit in the absence of any kind of
multilateral political understandings among the players
in Northeast Asia. Even if we grant the argument that a
defense-dominated world is safer than one dominated by
offensive missiles, whose number is admittedly coming
down, that does not mean that such a world can be left
to simply run on its own.
One of the abiding
lessons of international relations history is, in Donald
Kagan's words, that "peace does not preserve itself".
Hence political action is needed sooner rather than
later if the missile races now taking shape in East Asia
are to be regulated and kept peaceful. If governments
are left to pursue their own national defense strategies
without any overarching political framework, it is more
likely than not that repeated crises, and even possibly
war will break out in Northeast Asia. There is little
doubt that any such war will then truly represent the
failure of policy, not the triumph of a
defense-dominated world.
Stephen Blank
is an analyst of international security affairs residing
in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
(©2003 Asia
Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
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