Council for a Livable World coordinated writing and gathering signatures for a letter to President Biden from 65 national security leaders urging the President to include missile defenses in strategic stability talks with Russia and China:
June 3, 2021
The Honorable Joseph R. Biden
President
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President:
We urge you to demonstrate U.S. openness to including missile defenses in strategic stability talks with Russia and China. The Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system, meant to defend the U.S. homeland, is already “on hold” because of its failures, and so at this time, is not a current threat to Russia or China. This presents an opportunity to halt the current arms race between U.S. missile defense systems and new offensive systems being built by Russia and China to overcome U.S. defenses.
Current plans to develop a layered missile defense, by integrating theater systems with the GMD, and to pursue advanced capabilities to track and intercept hypersonic missiles via space-based sensors and, possibly, space-based interceptors, threaten to upend strategic stability between nuclear armed states. Particularly troubling was the testing last November of an SM-3 Block IIA missile against an “ICBM-class” target. This test, in which an interceptor was launched from a U.S. destroyer at sea, has threatened Russia’s and China’s confidence in their strategic deterrent while eroding U.S. security as Russia builds new offensive forces to overwhelm U.S. defenses. Delaying new work on the Navy Aegis BMD system by capping production of the Aegis SM-3 Block IIA interceptors and BMD-capable destroyers could be a first step to restoring strategic stability and stopping a nuclear arms race.
Two decades ago, at the National Press Club, you spoke on the absurdity of the “theological allegiance to missile defense.” As the new Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, you eloquently explained your profound disagreement with President George W. Bush’s commitment to develop national missile defense. You were right then, and you have the power to walk us back from the brink now.
You warned that the president’s missile defense plan could trigger a new nuclear arms race with Russia and China, asking:
“Are we really prepared to raise the starting gun in a new arms race in a potentially dangerous world? Because make no mistake about it, folks, if we deploy a missile defense system that is being contemplated, we could do just that. Step back from the [Anti-Ballistic Missile] ABM Treaty. Go full steam ahead and deploy a missile defense system, and we will be raising the starting gun. Let’s stop this nonsense before we end up pulling the trigger.”
Your words have proved prescient. The United States and Russia have already restarted a nuclear arms race in response to U.S. missile defenses. Russia is developing several new weapon systems specifically to overwhelm U.S. BMD systems, regardless of their actual reliability. China too has modified its nuclear forces by developing a new generation of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), testing a hypersonic glider, and antisatellite weapons.
Since the 1950s, the United States has spent more than $400 billion on various missile defense programs. Today, you have inherited the long-range GMD system that is currently “on hold” because of its repeated failures. The Government Accountability Office in 2020 found serious problems with the Missile Defense Agency’s testing program: “it only completed about a third of its planned flight tests each year between FYs 2010-2019.”
Furthermore, of the tests that have been performed, the system has only been successful in 11 of its 19 tests, including three of its last six, under highly-scripted conditions and without the inclusion of even basic enemy countermeasures. Test results are not improving over time as one might expect.
Ever since President Bush withdrew the United States from the ABM Treaty in 2002, the GMD system has proceeded in a rushed, chaotic and ultimately counter-productive manner that has resulted in a failed test record, wasted billions of dollars, and accelerated an arms race with Russia and China, leading both adversaries to expand their offensive nuclear weapons programs to counter U.S. missile defenses.
After your successful extension of the New START treaty, Russia has explicitly linked its participation in future arms control discussions to U.S. willingness to discuss missile defense. Diplomatic engagement – an approach to the world you have championed – on missile defense is in the national self-interest.
Again, we urge you demonstrate U.S. openness to including missile defenses in strategic stability talks with Russia and China.
Sincerely,
(Affiliations for identification purposes only)
James Acton
Co-director, Nuclear Policy Program
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Gordon Adams
Fellow, Quincy Institute
Professor Emeritus, School of International Service, American University
Co-authored “A Leaner and Meaner Defense: How to Cut the Pentagon’s Budget While Improving Its Performance” (2011)
Ricardo Aponte, Brigadier General, U.S. Air Force, Ret
COO, American College of National Security Leaders
Donna Barbisch, Major General, U.S. Army, Ret
CEO, American College of National Security Leaders
Jamie Barnett, Rear Admiral, U.S. Navy, Ret
Rand Beers
Former Deputy Assistant to the President for Homeland Security
Susan F. Burk
Former Special Representative of the President for Nuclear Nonproliferation
Joe Cirincione
Distinguished Fellow, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft
Philip E. Coyle, III
Former Associate Director for National Security and International Affairs, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
Thomas Countryman
Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation, 2011 to 2017
Toby Dalton
Co-director, Nuclear Policy Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Tom Daschle
U.S. Senator, 1987 to 2005
Ambassador Glyn T. Davies (Ret)
Byron Dorgan
U.S. Senator, 1992-2011
Paul Eaton, Major General, U.S. Army, Ret
Andrew Facini
Harvard University
Steve Fetter
Professor, University of Maryland; Former official, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and Department of Defense
Barney Frank
U.S. Representative, 1981 to 2013
Nancy Gallagher
Research Professor, University of Maryland School of Public Policy and Director, Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland
Robert G. Gard, Jr., Lt. General, U.S. Army, Ret
Former President, National Defense University
Thomas Graham, Jr.
Special Representative of the President for Arms Control, Nonproliferation and Disarmament, 1994 to 1997
Laura Grego
Senior Scientist, Research Director, Acting Co-Director, Global Security Program, Union of Concerned Scientists
Authored “Broken Shield,” Laura Grego and David Wright, Scientific American, June 2019.
Lisbeth Gronlund
Research Affiliate, Laboratory for Nuclear Security and Policy, MIT Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering
Morton H Halperin
Former official, Departments of State and Defense and National Security Council
Janice M. Hamby, Rear Admiral, U.S. Navy (Ret), DM
Tom Harkin
U.S. Senator, 1985 to 2015
Gary Hart
U.S. Senator, 1975 to 1987
Sanford Holman, Major General, U.S. Army, Ret
Fellow, American College of National Security Leaders
Rush D. Holt
U.S. Representative 1999-2015
Ambassador Dennis Jett (Ret.), Ph.D.
Professor of International Affairs
John H. Johns, Brigadier General, U.S. Army, Ret
Ph.D. Professor Emeritus, National Defense University
Ambassador (ret) Laura Kennedy
Former U.S. Representative to the Conference on Disarmament
Daryl G. Kimball
Executive Director, Arms Control Association
Richard L. Klass, Colonel, U.S. Air Force, Ret
Lawrence Korb
Former Assistant Secretary of Defense and retired Navy captain
Anthony Lake
Former National Security Advisor
Jeffrey Lewis
Professor, Middlebury Institute
Authored “The Nuclear Option: Slowing a New Arms Race Means Compromising on Missile Defenses” (2021)
Randy Manner, Major General, U.S. Army, Ret
Leah Matchett
PhD Candidate, Stanford University
Ambassador (ret) Edward Marks
Foreign Service of the United States
Carlos E. Martínez, Brigadier General, U.S. Air Force, Ret
J.R. McBrien, SES, US Treasury Dept./OFAC (Ret)
Treasurer, American College of National Security Leaders
Joseph Medina, Brigadier General, U.S. Marine Corps, Ret
Zia Mian
Senior Research Scholar and Co-Director, Program in Science and Global Security, Princeton University
Adam Mount
Senior Fellow and Director, Defense Posture Project, Federation of American Scientists
J. Scott O’Meara, Brigadier General, U.S. Marine Corps, Ret
William J. Perry
19th Secretary of Defense
Stewart Prager
Professor, Astrophysical Sciences
Program on Science and Global Security, Princeton University
Kingston Reif
Director for Disarmament and Threat Reduction Policy, Arms Control Association
Ben Rhodes
Former Deputy National Security Advisor
Jaganath Sankaran
Assistant Professor, Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin
Co-authored “Reexamining Homeland Missile Defense Against North Korea”
Rebecca Slayton
Associate Professor, Cornell Department of Science & Technology Studies
Director, Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies
Authored “Arguments that Count: Computing, Physics, and Missile Defense, 1949-2012” (MIT Press, 2013)
Ambassador Nancy E. Soderberg
Former Deputy National Security Advisor
Greg Thielmann
Former Director, Office of Strategic, Proliferation, and Military Affairs, State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research
John Tierney
Member of Congress 1997–2015
Executive Director, Council for a Livable World, Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation
F. Andrew Turley, Major General, U.S Air Force, Ret
Mark Udall
U.S. Senator, 2009-2015
Frank N. von Hippel
White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (1993-1994)
Program on Science and Global Security, Princeton University
Jim Walsh
Senior Research Associate, MIT Security Studies Program
Earl Anthony (Tony) Wayne
Career Ambassador (Ret)
Sharon K. Weiner
Associate Professor, American University
Authored “Our Own Worst Enemy? Institutional Interests and the Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Expertise” (2011)
Ambassador Pamela A. White (Ret)
Lawrence Wilkerson, Colonel, U.S. Army, Ret
Former Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell
Michael N Wilson, Major General, U.S. Air Force, Ret
David Wright
Research Affiliate, Laboratory for Nuclear Security and Policy, MIT Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering
Authored “Broken Shield,” Laura Grego and David Wright, Scientific American, June 2019
