Narrow screen resolution Wide screen resolution
Against Missile Defence System Print E-mail
Written by Pax Christi International   
Thursday, 16 August 2007
1. Every country has the responsibility to protect its citizens. But we believe that the cause can be best served by multilateral negotiations on disarmament with stringent compliance and verification measures. More and more weapons will not make our world more secure. The means of security will in turn become the threat to security itself.

2. Pax Christi International firmly believes that development and deployment of such systems will have major detrimental consequences on bilateral and multilateral disarmament initiatives. It will undermine confidence building measures for disarmament, freeze progress in arms reduction, jeopardise future arms control agreements, and fuel arms race leading to the weaponisation of outer space.

3. The Pax Christi network challenges the concept that the development and acquisition of more and more weapons bring more security. Very often these trends undermine the security of the very people a state wishes to secure.

4. The development and deployment of a Missile Defence System is addressing the symptom – protection against a possible nuclear attack – rather than the root cause of the problem – the existence of nuclear weapons. As such, it contradicts the move towards a worldwide ban on nuclear weapons, as agreed upon in Article VI of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty.

5. From decades back the world is at a stage where all lives can be totally destroyed and many times over with nuclear weapons. Today’s contribution of science and technology is leading our world towards the weaponisation of
space. The consequence of these possibilities can only threaten global human security. The reversal of these trends is fundamental to the future of humanity and global survival.

6. Pax Christi urges the United Nations, NATO, the European Union and governments and peoples of the world to promote and develop alternative means of security, freeze further weaponisation of the world and begin the process of disarmament based on bilateral and multilateral agreements with stringent compliance and verification measures. All resources saved from armament production and research should be diverted to genuine development and human security.

7. After a brief decline since the Cold War, the global military expenditure is estimated to be 1204 billion US dollars. This is 37 per cent increase between 1997 and 2006.

8. Positioning of such systems in Central Europe will certainly provoke a retaliatory response from Russia. It might result in Russia suspending strategic arms reductions and its withdrawal from nuclear arms control agreements. This could lead Russia to multiplying the number of warheads on its ballistic missiles and maintain a higher number of warheads on launch-on-warning alert for a rapid and massive counterattack.

9. Missile Defence System carries the fundamental risk of provoking destabilizing offence-defence spiral in relation to missiles with implications for spreading the arms race into outer space. The US withdrawal from the Anti Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 2002 has opened up the doors for research and development of multi-layered ballistic missile system for advanced countries which could lead to testing and deployment of weapons in outer space. The ABM Treaty had prevented such developments in the past and has served the world as the cornerstone of strategic stability.

10. The Missile Defence System e.g. radars, surveillance systems and the interceptors can also be used for offensive military purposes. This could also lead China to increase nuclear offensive capacity to compensate for weakened deterrence which will certainly raise concerns in India and consequently in Pakistan thus provoking further destabilisation in the region.

11. The reason for the US setting up Missile Defence System is fundamentally based on ballistic missile attacks from ‘rouge states’. Out of the three previously categorised ‘rogue states’ Iraq, Iran and North Korea, Iran seems to be the only remaining ‘state of concern’ in this regard. Significant progress is being made in relation to nuclear weapons issue in the case of North Korea.

12. From the information available either from disarmament specialists or from disarmament literature, Iran is far from acquiring any capacity to deliver weapons to intercontinental targets. The US argument for setting up Missile Defence System appears to be irrational and impervious to deterrence for many disarmament experts. Any such attempt on the US would be suicidal for any country to attempt as it will provoke massive retaliatory response.

13. A country or a terrorist group might choose to deliver Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) through other cheaper means available to them. There are also questions as to whether a Missile Defence System would be able to fully prevent missile attacks. They could also be defeated by manoeuvrable warheads, low trajectories and use of chaff. Distinguishing between warheads and decoys will also be a problem for such systems. There are also genuine concerns regarding possible use of nuclear explosion in the atmosphere to guarantee the destruction of all war heads.

14. The demise of the Cold War had given humanity an unprecedented opportunity to forge a national and international agenda for disarmament. But that opportunity is slipping away. There is hardly any progress on major disarmament issues in a climate where confidence on multilateralism is eroding. Confidence in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is eroding away as well and leading our world to a more and more dangerous situation.

15. Pax Christi International firmly believes that if the Missile Defence System is established, it will set the nuclear disarmament agenda back by decades. It will destroy the possibility of various negotiations needed for any progress in the field of disarmament and make our world far more dangerous. These fears were behind the UN General Assembly resolution adopted in 1999 which urged the parties to the ABM Treaty to preserve the ‘integrity and validity’ of the treaty by refraining from developing such systems and installing them in their respective or other countries. The US and three other States were the only ones who opposed the resolution.

16. The cause of disarmament and international peace and security will be best served if the national security concerns can be addressed politically and diplomatically rather than through the establishment of Missile Defence System.
Last Updated ( Wednesday, 15 August 2007 )