The Protection of

US Allies

Hoover Institution Working Group on Military History

Are Traditional US Security

Guarantees Still Sufficient?
QUIS CUSTODIET IPSUM CUSTODEM?
ANGELO M.CODEVILLA

On June 25, 1963, in Frankfurts Paulskirche, President John F. Kennedy stated the
formulaby which the US government still pretends to guarantee our major allies
protection: The United States will risk its cities to defend yours. [US troops deployed
among you] are tangible evidence of that pledge. Kennedy stated it emphatically because
his intended audience never believed it. West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer
boycotted the declaration, while Charles de Gaulle said of it, Ils ne sont pas serieux (they
are not serious) and pulled France out of the NATO command. The Kennedy administration
had already undermined its pledge in word and deed, coming into office having rejected
the Eisenhower-Dulles commitment to contain Communist forces by American nuclear
superiority, and having begun to withdraw US medium-range missiles from Europe.
With Bernard Brodies The Absolute Weapon (1946) and Henry Kissingers Nuclear Weapons
and Foreign Policy (1957) as intellectual guides, the White House had decided to respond to
aggressions with limited war in the places where they might occur. Vietnam would be the
paradigm. Moreover, Robert McNamara had already decided not to enable US nuclear forces
to attack the Soviets new underground missile launchers, but rather to focus qualitatively
and quantitatively on destroying cities and ensuring that the United States should not have
a missile defense. The 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty codified these attitudes. This
dictated the procurement of US weapons. For example, the Poseidon C3 program, featuring
the 40kt warhead with 0.25nautical miles accuracy, was designed to spread twenty-poundsper-square-inch circles of overpressure optimally over Soviet undefended targets. The policy
would become known as mutual assured destruction, or MAD. Nixon/Kissinger called it
nuclear sufficiency.
As the reality set in that US officials were unlikely to risk nuclear destruction of undefended
America for any reason whatever, the mantra we will risk our cities to defend yours
heralded the hollowing out of Americas alliance systemNATO first.1
It sounds hackneyed, but its true: extended deterrence is a product of escalation dominance.
The United States cannot, by conventional war, defend allies on either rim of the Eurasian
continent against nuclear-armed nations. That is so especially because we are unable to
protect ourselves at the highest levels of warfare. The Soviet Unions death so eased thoughts

Military History

A HOOVER INSTITUTION ESSAY ON THE PROTECTION OF US ALLIES

of what might be required to redeem guarantees of security that we extended them to

Eastern Europe. But the rise of China and of Russian President Vladimir Putins Russia, as
well as the current nuclear status of Iran and North Korea, remind us that guarantees not
backed by the capacity to redeem them endanger all concerned.
Securing defenseless East Europeans is strictly about the extent to which we are willingto
fight Russia. Hence it rests on our capacity for self-protection. Americas commitment
to Israel risks attacks on itself, especially should Israel use its nuclear weapons to secure
its own survival. Preparing for this eventuality and minimizing its likelihood argue for
strengthening Israels missile defense and building our own. As Japan and South Korea
decide whether Americas default to Chinas growing power warrants acquiring nuclear
weapons, they import US missile defense equipment and wonder why we do not optimize
it for our own protection. Our government, however, remains committed to doing nothing
that might hinder Russian or Chinese missiles from reaching American soil. As I discuss
below, this reduces the effectiveness of the equipment provided to US allies, in addition
toreducing Americas security guarantee to Israel.

Russia integrates nuclear weapons in ordinary military operations. General Valery

Gerasimov, Russias chief of the General Staff, said, A strong nuclear arsenal will ensure
military superiority over the West.2 Russian spokesmen have promised to counter attempts
to return Crimea to Ukraine forcefully including through the use of nuclear force. 3 Were
the United States to move forces into the Baltic states, Russia would consider those nations
to be potential co-aggressors against Russian-speaking minorities. Russias responses,
ranging from nuclear to non-military, would endanger the United States potentially
morethan in Ukraine.4
The US governments plan to send tripwire troops to the Baltics is based on the
assumption that the Russians wouldnt dare trip that wire. What if they did dare, by
surrounding the soldiers? The US government would have to choose between surrendering
them and a nuclear confrontation. What could we do in such a confrontation? Given our
vulnerability, risking our cities could only be a blufftransparent and brief.
China, for its part, is building military superiority on the Pacific Rim to present us with a
similar choice. Its offensive strategy is operationally defensive: extend control of the sea
from the land. Artificial islands, covered on the landward side by diesel submarines, sensors,
and land-based aircraft, function as unsinkable carriers that extend the range of sensors and
aircraftand hence of shipsyet farther seaward. Among Chinas many supersonic antiship cruise missiles, the YJ-18 is maneuverable. The DF-21D ballistic missile, re-targetable
in flight and carrying a nuclear weapon, is made to kill carriers. Like many in Chinas
fleet of short- and medium-range ballistic missiles, it is mobile-based and hence safe from

Angelo M. Codevilla Are Traditional US Security Guarantees Still Sufficient?

preemptive destruction. Chinas argument, which it makes with military preparations rather
than words, is that sending US aircraft carriers into the region under hostile conditions
is suicidal. While it is clear that operating the carrier fleet within a thousand miles of
China would risk grievous losses, it is less clear what, if it got close enough, it could do to
protect Japan, Taiwan, or South Korea. Were China to sink a couple of carriers, would an
undefended United States hit China with ballistic missiles, thereby risking our cities?
What good would it do for a vulnerable America even to threaten such a foolish thing?
Establishment political discourse averts attention from the fact that, if push came to shove,
what we would and would not do depends on whether or not we can prevailand above all
surviveat the highest levels of warfare. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, a presidential
candidate promised that restoring the Pentagons budget to its appropriate level...
will allow us to neutralize Chinas rapidly growing capabilities in every strategic realm,
including air, sea, ground, cyber space, and even outer space. 5 But no one has ever been
killed or deterred by an amorphous piece of GDP. Money is not to be confused with power.
Then, confusing shows of force, tripwires, and threats with reality, he continued: Under
my presidency, the U.S. will conduct joint freedom of navigation exercises... to challenge
any Chinese attempts to close off international waters or airspace.... I will not hesitate to
take action. Like what? And then what?

It behooves us to pay attention, as do our allies and adversaries, to the bottom line from
which euphemistic rhetoric has averted our attention since JFKs days: to guarantee
ourselvesnever mind other countriesagainst nuclear powers requires defending against
missile attack. We cannot do that, nor can our missile defense programs lead to that,
because the ABM Treatys most enduring provisions (i.e.,the prohibition against anything
that might substitute for ground-based radars and control systems and against the use of
other physical principles) have long since defined the intellectual horizon within which
live the people in Congress, the military, and the contractor community (never mind the
think tanks) who deal with missile defensethe 2002 formal demise of the ABM Treaty
notwithstanding.
The programs themselves embody assumptions that have long since been taken for granted
and are no longer questioned. For example, development of the interceptors for national
missile defense has been proceeding as it has since at least 1994 because they are intended
to cover the entire country from one (now two) bases. This is an operational concept that
makes no sense operationally. Why work to perfect components to fit operational nonsense?
The answer to that and kindred questions is the hangover of the ABM Treaty and of the
attitude that produced it. The formal end of the treaty notwithstanding, US policys
commitment to posing no obstacles to Russian or Chinese missiles reaching US targets

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remains paramount. Moreover, although the treaty constrained defense against strategic
missiles only (which it did not define)but not defense against lesser missiles, or air
defenseit prohibited using or testing any equipment for the latter things in an ABM
mode (which it also did not define). Accordingly, the US government divides programs and
equipment between national missile defense (i.e., defense of US territory) and tactical
or theater missile defense, and goes to great lengths to make sure that nothing it does to
defend against short- and medium-range missiles directed at allies might possibly defend
America. For example, the anti-Iran US radar originally intended for the Czech Republic had
no sensors facing Russia. Nevertheless, the US government canceled it in homage to Russia.
The self-contradictory intent at the heart of US missile defense hinders and distorts the
useof technology. Reversing it requires understanding it.

Todays national missile defense consists of thirty interceptor missiles located at Fort Greely,
Alaska, plus four at Californias Vandenberg Air Force Base, all to be launched and guided
to terminal guidance phase by the Cobra Dane radar located at Eareckson Air Station on
Shemya, Alaska, according to the concept of operation frozen by the ABM Treaty. The radar
and fire-control system that dispatches the interceptors must wait to program the interceptors
until the incoming warheads come over its horizon. This is tokenism of the inefficient kind.
Efficiency would require that missile defense interceptors be launched on the basis
of information from sources close to the offensive missiles point of launch. That is
becausesurface-based missile defense is essentially a time-distance problem as taught in
Algebra I: since the distance from the target at which the interceptor will meet the
incoming warhead depends on the time and speed at which both are traveling, that
distance increases in proportion to the ratio between the interceptors time of travel
and the warheads time of travel. This means that launching an interceptor early tends
to counteract whatever deficiencies in its speed it might have relative to the incoming
warhead.
Technology has always made it possible to combine early warning and fire control. Forwardlocated radars can gather, sort, and communicate information accurately enough for
launching interceptors and guiding or programming them to terminal intercept phase.
Thus,interceptors can be based near places to be defended and launched on the basis of
remote data. Soviet-Russian missile defense always combined warning and fire control as
best it could, beginning with the connection between the Hen House radars and the SA-5D
a half century ago. Continental countries can place radars at borders far away from valuable
targets and set interceptor rockets near them. Thus, they can count on those interceptors
receiving fire-control information and launching in time to protect the targets. That is why
todays S-400 and S-300 anti-missile systems are more potent in Russia than abroad.

Angelo M. Codevilla Are Traditional US Security Guarantees Still Sufficient?

Americas vulnerability is unique because it is surrounded by oceans and friendly countries;

the only ballistic missiles that can reach the United States (other than ones launched
fromthe oceans) must arc high and reach speeds of approximately eight kilometers
persecond before they reach us. Thus, interceptors for US defense must be launched
especially earlymeaning on the basis of sensors from very far forward. Today, were all
ofAmericas forward-located, early warning, and intelligence radars to be endowed with
fire-control functions, they could inform, launch, and direct a host of interceptors on
USsoil. That would help some. But we dont do that.
Because of the Earths curvature, radars cannot deliver information early enough for
launching surface-based interceptors to defend the United States. Such timely information
can come only from optical sensors based on satellites in orbits from which they can
see, track, and discriminate missiles and warheads from all locations, and then sort and
communicate the data to launch interceptorslong before the warheads come over the
radar horizon. That is the optimal way for surface-based interceptors to protect America.
Making sure that America would never build such a satellite network is why the Soviet
Union insisted that the 1972 treaty prohibit substituting for ground-based radars. In the
1980s, the US government started work on such a network, as the lower tier of a three-tier
effort known as the Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS). Circa 2005, the lower tier was
eliminated, consistent with the treaty-mandated perspective that sensors may assist groundbased radars, but must be unable to substitute for them. By so doing, the US government
spurned developing surface-based missile defense in the manner that is, as well, most
effective for our allies.

To avoid defending ourselves, we defend alliesbadly.

Consider Israel. Geometry dictates that radars anywhere in this tiny countryno matter
how powerfulhave scarcely any time to see and track missiles coming over the horizon,
even at slow speeds, before it is nearly too late for interceptorsno matter how fast
tomeet them far enough away. The Arrow systems radar deals with this as well as any
co-located radar can. But because the Earths curvature trumps it, the un-aided Arrow is
adequate only for incoming missiles of a certain speed, and hence range (anything from
Syria). For anything faster and from farther away (Iran), it would have to depend on radar
from US ships in a crisis. If the Arrow could launch on the basis of satellite information,
however, it could protect against any warheads from anywhere.
That is because (again, the time-distance problem) the source of information on the basis
of which the interceptor is fired has far more to do with the systems effective range (and
hence with coverage footprint) and with whether the system can intercept only warheads

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from slower, shorter-range missiles or also faster ones from farther away, than do the
interceptors range and speed.
Consider Japan. One American and six Japanese battalions of Patriot Pac-3 systems are
based on the islands. The United States is considering stationing the Terminal High Altitude
Air Defense(THAAD) in Japan and South Korea. Five American and four Japanese Aegis
ships cruise the nearby seas. These, increasingly, are equipped with the capacity to integrate
their radars and, hence, to fire interceptors on the basis of information from ships farther
forward. To one extent or another, however, all these systems are constrained by the radar
horizon.
Even THAAD, which has a radar and interceptor range of one thousand kilometers, is
not quite able to deal with warheads that crest the horizon at a distance of less than
onethousand kilometers at speeds of eight kilometers per second. So, if THAAD wereto
defend against warheads from China, it would have to be launched before they cameover
the horizon. This means that the launch order would have to come from orbit. Similarly,the
Aegis SM-3 Block I naval interceptor has a range of some four hundred kilometers and
a ceiling of 160kilometersenough for most purposes if launched in good time. The
subsequent Block II and projected III versions could intercept the very fastest intercontinental
missile warheads heading from anywhere to anywherebut again, only if launched in good
time. But the SPY I radar that informs the Aegis fire-control system is also limited by the
horizon. Ship-to-ship internetting helps but is a poor substitute for orbital fire control.

The most effective way of defending against all ballistic missiles, however, has always been
and always will be to hit them during their ascent under power. There is no alternative to
doing this from orbit. By 1970, so clear were the prospects of using high-energy lasers to
destroy missiles in the vacuum of space that the Soviet Union insisted that the 1972 ABM
Treaty prohibit using other physical principles (read, lasers) for anti-missile purposes.
In 1979, the US space laser program was born from the union of the Navy/DARPA highenergy laser with devices already existing as part of the KH-11 imagery satellite. By 1994,
the New York Times reported that the first space laser was nearly ready to fly.6 Although
allprojections depend on assumptions, matching the characteristics of a rotating
constellation of a dozen US laser stations against a massive missile attack on America
indicates that it would have made military nonsense of the attack, and might have negated
it wholly. Surely, it would preclude lesser attacks anywhere. The Clinton administration
canceled the space laser.
Beginning in 1996, Grumman/TRW adapted the space lasers technology for ground-based
defense of Israeli urban areas against artillery rockets. This was far more difficult technically
than deploying the system in space (e.g.,providing the negative pressure for the lasers

Angelo M. Codevilla Are Traditional US Security Guarantees Still Sufficient?

hypersonic nozzles and shooting at targets with high angular velocities). In short, the
weapon that destroyed artillery rockets and mortar shells in Israel up to 2007 is a more
complex device than what would have been deployed in space. This means that, technically,
space-based lasers are as lively an option as ever for defending against missiles.
Orbit-based lasers, by their nature, could destroy satellites far more easily than missiles.
This, coupled with their capacity to permit or prevent any rocket from anywhere to access
space, would, ipso facto, give their possessor effective control of space. Sooner or later,
someone will achieve this capacity. It had better be us.

The security of our major allies is important to us. But at present we can deliver security
toEastern Europe only by exposing ourselves to Russian nuclear coercion. To protect Japan,
South Korea, or Israel is to take upon ourselves nuclear threats directed at them. Note as
well that were they to achieve security by their own nuclear weapons, their wars would
eventually involve us. All these factors argue for replacing our traditional formula for
security guarantees with one premised on guaranteeing our own first.

NOTES
1 See Robert Kleiman, Atlantic Crisis: American Diplomacy Confronts a Resurgent Europe (New York:
Norton, 1964).
2 Thomas Grove, Russia says nuclear arms to keep military edge over NATO, United States,
Reuters, January 30, 2015, http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/30/us-russia-military
-idUSKBN0L311E20150130#cFdZ2BK47sBmTVO6.97.
3 Ian Johnston, Russia threatens to use nuclear force over Crimea and the Baltic states, The
Independent, April 2, 2015, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-threatens
-to-use-nuclear-force-over-crimea-and-the-baltic-states-10150565.html.
4Ibid.
5 Marco Rubio, How My Presidency Would Deal With China, Wall Street Journal, August 27, 2015.
6 William J. Broad, From Fantasy to Fact: Space-Based Laser Nearly Ready to Fly, New York Times,
December 6, 1994.

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Working Group on the Role of Military History

inContemporary Conflict

About the Author

ANGELO M. CODEVILLA
Angelo M. Codevilla is a professor
emeritus of international relations
at Boston University. He was a US
naval officer and Foreign Service
officer and served on the Senate
Intelligence Committee as well as
on presidential transition teams.
For a decade he was a senior
research fellow at the Hoover
Institution. He is the author of
thirteen books, including War
Ends and Means, The Character
of Nations, and Advice to War
Presidents. He is a student of the
classics as well as of European
literature; he is also a commercial
grape grower.

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The Working Group on the Role of Military History in

Contemporary Conflict examines how knowledge of past
military operations can influence contemporary public
policy decisions concerning current conflicts. The careful
study of military history offers a way of analyzing modern
war and peace that is often underappreciated in this age of
technological determinism. Yet the result leads to a more
in-depth and dispassionate understanding of contemporary
wars, one that explains how particular military successes
and failures of the past can be often germane, sometimes
misunderstood, or occasionally irrelevant in the context
ofthe present.
The core membership of this working group includes David
Berkey, Peter Berkowitz, Max Boot,Josiah Bunting III, Angelo
M.Codevilla, Thomas Donnelly, Admiral James O. Ellis Jr.,
ColonelJoseph Felter, Victor Davis Hanson (chair), Josef Joffe,
Frederick W. Kagan, Kimberly Kagan, Edward N. Luttwak,
Peter Mansoor, General Jim Mattis, Walter Russell Mead, Mark
Moyar, Williamson Murray, Ralph Peters, Andrew Roberts,
Admiral Gary Roughead, Kori Schake, Kiron K. Skinner, Barry
Strauss, Bruce Thornton, Bing West, Miles Maochun Yu, and
Amy Zegart.
For more information about this Hoover Institution Working
Group visit us online at www.hoover.org/research-topic/military.

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