MAD about THAAD

By Jonathan Joseph Chiarella

Mutually Assured Destruction, better known as MAD, is not perfect. It was skewered in the black comedy Dr. Strangelove, loosely based on the novel Red Alert.

Dr. Strangelove lambasted the madness of arms races that pushed humanity to the point of making the weapons necessary to ensure its own extinction and for overlooking the possible dangers of human error, accidents and asymmetry of information. In the film, the Soviet Union delays in telling the world of the completion of a doomsday device; meanwhile, an insane U.S. General goes rogue and orders a nuclear attack.

Neo-realist scholars like the late Kenneth Waltz argue such scenarios never played out because systems tend toward rationality and predictability. For all its flaws, MAD has been instrumental in preventing a third World War. MAD theory follows simple, logical axioms of self-interest and game theory.

Neither the Soviet Union nor the U.S.A. have directly attacked the other, largely because the ensuing war would be a mutual murder-suicide. If the U.S. attacked the U.S.S.R., or vice versa, it could expect a massive nuclear counterstrike, and the ensuing nuclear war would be catastrophic for all involved.

The world would be better off without enough collective nukes to wipe out all animal life on Earth many times over. They are as much of an existential threat as global warming. However, we cannot “put the genie back in the bottle.” Nuclear technology exists. Until a day comes when all the world’s peoples have the ability and the will to pressure themselves and all others to decommission all nukes, we must consider MAD and balances of power. This may soon change, however, with Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, better known as THAAD.

After a strong sell of THAAD in late 2014, the U.S. dropped the topic as South Korea sought “strategic ambiguity” vis-a-vis the U.S. and China throughout 2015. This year, however, with the North’s testing of new rocket technologies, the Korean government and the U.S. have begun negotiations on deploying THAAD. The speed of the system’s expected deployment makes me suspect the U.S. long ago placed orders with Lockheed Martin.

THAAD is a so-called missile defence (MD) system that is deployed in Guam and Alaska, with extra attendant RADAR systems in Japan. China and Russia are deeply troubled by THAAD. Like all MD, it has inherent flaws. For decades, scientists from Bell Labs to MIT have pointed out the impracticality of MD as well as the strategic implications—THAAD is a repeat of Reagan’s Strategic Defence Initiative, itself the last in a line of Cold War missile strategies.

The systems must be perfect on the first go and the enemy missiles must not have any technology that was not known to the MD designers at the time of the MD’s design. Israeli and U.S. internal reports and testimony for years have contradicted the claims of American presidents of MD’s efficacy, ever since the first Gulf War. If MD systems have any use at all, it is in their ability to stop a counter-strike.

The U.S. could launch a surprise strike with weapons of mass destruction and its new bunker-busting nukes, wiping out most of China or Russia’s weapons. MD would then be able to handle the limited and weak counter-strike they would launch—meaning the U.S. would no longer be subject to the pressures of mutually assured destruction.

Even if the MD cannot stop a counter-strike, China, Russia and North Korea may think it can, or may believe the U.S. thinks it can. In that case, they see the U.S. reserving the right and creating the ability to launch aggressive measures towards minor consequences at any point. If war looks inevitable, then the disadvantaged parties’ only hope is to strike first.

THAAD specifically has the ability to complete reconnaissance on inland Chinese bases and can be reconfigured in less than eight hours. It will almost definitely be run by the U.S. and be part of a large trip-wire linking Korea, Japan and the U.S.

Regardless, North Korean leadership would not invite suicide by instigating a war it would surely lose unless war was inevitable. Any missile fired on South Korea would fly low and fast and not be covered by THAAD. THAAD will only destabilize Korea and Northeast Asia.