How Donald Trump’s missile defence review – and its impact on China and Russia – threatens global security
- Ankit Panda writes that the United States’ statement of defence policy will cause reactions in Beijing and Moscow that will undermine the world’s protection against war
The Trump administration has released its missile defence review – a strategic document setting the stage for an expansion of how the US protects its territory, allies and military forces from cruise, ballistic and hypersonic threats. The document’s consequences will range far past just “defence”, however.
As the Nobel Prize-winning game theorist Thomas Schelling once warned, all those decades ago during the cold war, the importance of “feedback” in military planning cannot be overstated. For every action taken by the United States, its adversaries will react. This has been and remains true of missile defence.
It’s why, for instance, last March, Russian President Vladimir Putin stood before the world and unveiled a pantheon of new and exotic nuclear delivery systems.
These weapons were being created “in response to the unilateral withdrawal of the United States of America from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty,” he noted, citing the 2002 decision by the George W. Bush administration to withdraw from the cold war-era treaty.
Russia’s concern was that its nuclear deterrent – the cornerstone of its national security – would be eroded as the US continued to improve its homeland missile defence capabilities. Ultimately, Russia’s ability to hold US targets at risk – a requirement for deterrence – would be gone.