Missiles and Nuclear Nonproliferation: are we getting the balance right?
New publication on MTCR policy, at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (link below):
Please head to the CSIS website to read a new article, co-authored with my former NSC colleague Ola Craft, a Senior Trade Advisor at Lowenstein Sandler, LLP (and export control genius):
Ola and I lay out the case for further streamlining our missile controls and related regulations to enable support for our closest allies and partners—many of whom are MTCR members in good standing and have strong export control systems—to enhance their conventional deterrents. We are trying to highlight that we may be at a point in our nuclear nonproliferation discourse (and the increasing risk of nuclear proliferation) that we should examine the tradeoff between defense trade and tech protection and our ability to discourage friendly proliferation.
This is particularly important for extended deterrence. Characters like Vipin and I spent a few years in government trying to find the path to better integrating allied conventional capabilities into U.S. extended nuclear deterrence thinking. Essentially, we wanted to convince allies that their conventional strike and missile defense capabilities, coupled with our own conventional and nuclear capabilities, provide a comprehensive and seamless extended deterrent that was credible. Ideally, given longstanding U.S. interest in reducing reliance on nuclear weapons—made more difficult in a worsened security environment today—finding ways to bolster allied conventional capabilities helps the United States avoid over-relying on nuclear weapons. Setting aside interests predicated on common sense, nuclear disarmament goals, or strategic stability, the fact that the United States may deal with multiple crises in the world, far apart, against different nuclear-armed adversaries predicates the need for strong, and integrated, extended deterrence approaches with our allies.
Furthering this strategy requires allies to have advanced missile technologies, UAS to provide ISR, and theater missile defenses as they are inside the adversaries missile threat rings. These are all capabilities restricted under MTCR export controls for good reason – falling into the hands of a state that seeks to develop WMD and put it on a delivery system, easy access to missile technology is one less hurdle to worry about. Unfortunately, taking a hard line against missile technology trade in U.S. export controls makes the fulfillment of this strategy more difficult.
The United States also has a sincere interest in working more closely with capable space launch partners. The United States, in implementing the MTCR guidelines, is not selective in how it limits missile launch technology regardless of end-use. Logically speaking, a ballistic missile that can put a satellite in orbit can also deliver a warhead here on planet earth. The U.S. strict construction in applying MTCR guidelines to sharing commercial space launch-related technologies is hampering that important cooperation. U.S. policy restrictions included not encouraging new space launch programs, even in MTCR member countries, defining “new” as any space launch program that began after 1987(!!!).
Given that the United States is also using space launch cooperation for national security missions, and the space domain is light years more important to the U.S. and allied security than it was in the 1980s, this is a long overdue change.
I recommend you read Sean Wilson’s excellent article summarizing the last Administration’s MTCR policy reform, particularly his analysis on space cooperation: https://aerospace.csis.org/missile-technology-control-regime-reform-key-changes-and-next-steps/
It is fair for a reader to ask, why should the U.S. loosen MTCR restrictions – doesn’t free trade in missiles beget clear a hurdle for WMD aspirants?
Some of our closest allies and partners are under severe pressure from nearby aggressors. Should surprising no one that Ukraine asked for NATO membership or nuclear weapons. Many observers wave this away as loose talk, but try and put yourselves in the shoes of a country that does not have a credible security guarantee from a nuclear-armed aggressor who is already lopping off slices of territory.
Ola and I try to take on the fair critiques to Biden’s MTCR policy shift in the CSIS article, but certainly this is a balancing act and it’s important to understand the views other nonproliferation advocates have expressed. Vann Van Diepen, someone I had the privilege of working with at the Department of State, and who has forgotten more about MTCR and nuclear nonproliferation in general than I will ever learn, wrote a brief article for Arms Control Association that merits attention. If you read our piece on CSIS, please read his piece as well:
Ola and I will record a podcast soon to talk about this new piece, and getting the balance between defense trade and nonproliferation right in a very different world than the one we imagined in the 1980s, when many of the multilateral nonpro and export control arrangements were negotiated.