Martin was scrambling on the issue. It is a well-known secret that the Liberals support the present ballistic missile defense system, the NDP and BQ are opposed, and Steven Harper’s Conservatives want more information on the plan before giving (expected) support. The Canadian Action Party, a serious, though fringe party, campaigned in the past federal election on a platform focusing, among other issues, Liberal mendacity regarding missile defense. For some reason Martin chooses to play bewildered, this perhaps because, unlike last summer, when his government backed modifications in the NORAD agreement that tacitly allowed the U.S. to pursue its missile defense program, Martin is now a minority government leader. Better to keep power than be open and honest, as the Liberals continue to remind us.
Much less attention has been directed by mainstream media, such as the Star, to Russia’s new nukes. Vladimir Putin has made it clear, that the nuclear deterrent is still a key element of Russia’s national defense. His announcement two weeks ago of upgrading Russia’s nuclear weapons technology to a level unmatched by other nuclear powers is one major reason why Bush chose to air his missiles in Ottawa.
Putin boasted on November 17th that “We are not only conducting research and successful tests on state-of-the-art nuclear missile systems…. Weapons, that not a single other nuclear power has.” These comments were for international consumption, in his way to let others know that the American missile defense shield may become obsolete before deployment. White House spokesman Scott McClellan responded to Putin’s comments then by downplaying the sabre-rattling, noting that the Pentagon is well aware of Russia’s longstanding modernization efforts for the military.
Putin’s efforts at military reform have also been well documented, with little visible results. Russia’s military, as events in Chechnya and Beslan have shown remains very much a Soviet anachronism in command structure and outlook. Mere numbers do not guarantee anything in modern warfare, for proof one only needs to look at the U.S.-led coalition’s struggles in Iraq. It seems that Russia’s plans to upgrade their nuclear deterrent are taking place as a substitute for restructuring the standard military. Analyst Peter Lavelle warns that without radical conventional forces reform the Kremlin is effectively lowering the threshold where nuclear weapons use may be considered, in the process encouraging others, not just the historic Cold War opponents, to focus on nuclear technology.
This, however, is old hat when it comes to the nuclear weapons showdown. Even more tired is the liberal tendency to appease at all costs
Consider the viewpoint of Richard Pipes. The Harvard historian and self-proclaimed proud “cold-warrior” served in Ronald Reagan’s first administration as part of the NSC team. Reagan’s anti-Communist world-view was well known, what was termed his truculence against Moscow may be compared to a degree with Bush’s determination to do things his way. Reagan’s intuition rather than intellect is his legacy. And, according to Pipes, Reagan instinctively knew that appeasement of the Soviets would not bring the end of the nuclear threat. The more secure Soviet leaders were, the more aggressively they behaved. The only time that Soviet leaders were accommodating to a foreign capitalist power was in 1940-41, when they feared, correctly, that Hitler would turn against them — which is why Soviets provided Nazi Germany with food and strategic material during this time.
Pipes was one of the authors of the NSC’s famous “Team B” report on US nuclear strategy — both offensive and defensive, keying on stability. He noted that strategic balance is not determined by the relative power of the two arsenal then facing each other, but above all else the intentions and mentality of the people controlling them. Soviets, now Russians are first and foremost offensively rather than defensively minded, thinking more of effective fighting capability, as echoed by Putin two weeks ago. Pipes notes that the Soviet Union, after gaining nuclear parity continued to deploy additional missile systems, under the premise that strategic nuclear weapons will play a role in a possible war, from which the Soviets intended to emerge with the least possible losses.
Pipes has been proven correct — recently released information about Warsaw Pact strategy saw nuclear attacks on NATO concentrations in Esbjerg and Roskilde and Western cities such as Antwerp and Hamburg be key to offensive operations of the Polish army should conventional war have broken out during the 1981 Polish martial law crisis
Analysts, conservative and liberal alike will keep publishing their viewpoints. History, however, proved Reagan right. John Lewis Gaddis, a noted historian of U.S. foreign policy believes that the Bush administration’s pre-emption doctrine (as opposed to Cold War first strike, key to Soviet nuke plans) is the most dramatic and significant shift in Washington’s international strategy since the outbreak of the Cold War. In a recent interview found on www.cfr.org Gaddis states that the Bush administration is thinking on global terms — pre-emption supplements but does not replace Cold War strategies of containment and deterrence.
A ballistic missile defense shield as part of the pre-emption concept is not conditioned by Putin’s latest nuclear threat, but is part of a long-term strategy that has far more effect on global stability than can be deduced by well-meaning peace protesters