BACKGROUND PAPER
ON
A RELATION BETWEEN MISSILE DEFENSE AND TERRORISM

1. This paper is a very brief discussion of a compelling reason why the United States should build a modest ballistic missile defense system as part of a unified defense against stateless terrorism.
2. The principle reason for building a missile defense system is not the direct threat posed by nations with ballistic nuclear capacity. Neither is it the threat posed by stateless nuclear terrorism. In the first case the offending nation would be destroyed outright if they launched against us. In the second case there would be no nation state to retaliate directly against nor would the likely delivery system be a ballistic one. The motivation for building a missile defense is instead to deter nations who may support stateless terrorists and are also ballistic nuclear missile armed. The following scenario should serve to illustrate why.
   1. The scenario to consider is what would happen if a stateless terrorist organization were to use a significant weapon of mass destruction against the United States and then retreat into or near a nuclear armed country. The U.S. might not be able to attack that country with conventional forces because of their capacity for a nuclear defense. The enemy's nuclear defense might be able to reach targets within the U.S. or might only have enough range to hit countries friendly to the U.S. Either case could pose a significant obstacle to the use of conventional force against the terrorists or their supporters. At the same time the U.S. might not have the degree of commitment to antipathy to use nuclear weapons against the nation harboring the terrorists. This would be an unacceptable standoff but one which a clever opponent could logically be expected to plan on and arrange for.
   2. Because of the likelihood of an opponent selecting when and where to attack and what environment to retreat into the U.S. must be able to project force into as many possible theaters as can be imagined. The simple reason for this is that it is the theaters into which force can not be projected - either because of lack of military preparedness, political will, or the ability to imagine and anticipate the need - that are the most likely to be selected by terrorists as their havens. A major part of the projection of force is the defense against any counter strike by the enemy. A missile defense system will add a substantial capacity to our force's ability to resist a counterattack and/or nuclear blackmail during a military response to terrorism.
3. In the scenario outlined above an effective missile defense would not need to be capable of defeating more than a few dozen missiles and is thus likely to be a fairly high return on the investment needed to construct it. It might therefore be called "modest". A modest missile defense will also have benefit beyond the direct defense of our forces by reducing the likelihood that nuclear weapons would even be used by an enemy state under conventional attack by the U.S. because it would reduce the perceived effectiveness of a small nuclear arsenal. Nobody wants to be caught in the nasty situation of having fired the first round in a nuclear exchange if that first round is ineffective.
4. Therefore I conclude that it would be prudent for the U.S. to proceed with the development of at least a modest missile defense system that is (ideally) useful both against intermediate and long ranged ballistic missiles as one aspect of a defense against terrorism and its consequences.