Golden Dome and NORAD: Not Quite Time to Panic

 

 With PM Carney meeting with Trump, perfectly timed for my US Foreign and Security Policy class which meets tonight to discuss US-Canada relations, it is, of course, time to panic about Canada joining Golden Dome.  See the headline to the piece at the Globe and Mail:

 

The substance of the article eventually gets to the reality: Canada has long had a commitment to helping the US defend North America via NORAD.  We provide much of the sensors so that the Americans can be alerted to incoming missiles.  That's it.  But Trump confuses things (demented people are often confused as are ignorant people who are untethered from reality).

 

So, here are some key facts about all of this:

1.  Golden Dome is mostly a branding exercise by Trump with a bit of self-deception.  The US has been investing a shit-ton of money on defenses on ballistic missiles [ABM] since Ronald Reagan's self-deception dream of the Strategic Defense Initiative.  Every 20 years or so, a Republican administration gets hot for ABM and very little actual progress is made on protecting all of the US from ballistic missiles or even a significant chunk (this stuff is very hard).  Oh, and engaging in an arms race here is incredibly dumb as it is super costly, that defense is always more expensive than offense.  Iron Dome's success in Israel is very deceptive--smaller target, many layers of stuff besides the one weapon system named Iron Dome, and mistakes/misses don't do that much damage.  Any missile attack on the US (or Canada) will be viewed as a nuclear attack, and that means the stakes are so much higher.  Even if the system could get 95% of the incoming weapons (which is pretty unrealistic), 5% of the incoming nukes will ruin a lot of people's day.  Still, we all want better situational awareness about what is going on in the high north, and this is the cost of doing business.

2.  Canada has been a key part of these missile defense efforts because we are in the way--that the missiles will come over the country on their way to the US.   So, the sensors are either in or above Canada to a large degree.  And with our warning systems getting old and with new technologies for attacking (hypersonic missiles [we die faster], cruise missiles, etc), we need to update the warning systems.  That promise has been made by both major parties and by multiple administrations and that money is being spent now and into the future.  So, Canada is not doing anything new or unexpected in this area.  Indeed, selling NORAD modernization has been a major priority of the governments the past several years.   Staying out of the ABM system has meant that Canada has no guarantee that the US will shoot down, say, an errant North Korean missile.  Getting inside of the system will give Canada a bit more influence and assurance that the very unlikely missile would get whatever opposition NORAD could muster.

3. We really don't know where Trump is coming up with $61b or $71b.  If he is ok with Canada spending its own money on components of the system--the stuff we are already spending, then things will be ok.  If he is asking for Canada to give $60-70b to the US Treasury to subsidize the US project, well, then the relationship is screwed.  That would be the equivalent of more than a year's worth of Canadian defence spending.  Politically and economically, it is impossible.  

So, please, let's not panic about Canada "already" planning on being part of Golden Dome.  It is already planning on continuing to be part of NORAD.  Even as we want to be more economically independent from the US, there is no way we can be militarily independent when it comes to the defense of North America.  Canada needs US help protecting its high north (the US has many more tankers and these have longer ranges, the US has many more fighters and better air to air fighters--F-22s), and the US needs to have info about what is doing in and beyond Canadian airspace.  NORAD has been working for quite some time, and the big concern is if Trump breaks it because he sees it as unfair.  If Trump can be convinced that Canada is keeping its promise to give the US what it needs, then it should be ok.

 

If Only the Golden Dome Were Just a Corrupt Grift

 The Golden Dome scheme is going to be such a disaster on so many levels that I am compelled to listicle:

1. It won't work.  That is, there can be no shield blocking all missiles.  So, what's the point?  How many nukes getting through would ruin your day?  The challenge of knocking down hypersonics is huge, and, yes, it is not like the US had solved the problem of shooting down the ballistic missiles of yore.  And, yes, the adversaries would invest in ways to fool the sensors, to evade the counter-fire, or just break the system via cyber attacks or anti-satellite attacks.
2. The good news is that having a partial shield is incredibly destabilizing.  Oh wait, that is bad news.  Deterrence in the nuclear age requires the major players to each have enough forces that can survive a first strike to heaps of   damage to their adversaries.  A partial shield might be handy for blocking someone's second strike--hit the other side first, take out enough of their weapons that their second strike is small enough that the defenses block most of the response.  This strategic situation would encourage each side to pre-empt rather than wait, so that an accident or a false alarm or a crisis might lead to a nuclear war.
3. It will be incredibly expensive.  The estimates are probably way too low, as the adversaries get a vote, and they would be responding imaginatively and intensely.  Which means that the US would then have to invest even more in countering their counter-measures.  Arms races are really, really expensive.  
4. It would be awful for the environment. Lots of space launches burning fuel in the atmosphere, occasional accidents in space creating yet more debris (does that count as an environmental disaster?).
5. It would fuck over Canada in a huge way.  Why?  Because Trump expects Canada to join and then pay how much?  At a time where Canadians detest Trump and find him to be thoroughly unreliable.  Would he protect Canada?  Probably not.  So, Canada is screwed either way.  Participate and spend a shit ton of money on stuff that won't work and won't be used for your defense OR don't participate and face Trump's increased wrath.  Lovely. 
6. What is it with demented Republicans imagining magic space shields? This is the Strategic Defense Initiative all over again.  The billions spent on SDI led to what exactly?  Definitely not a sound nuclear defense system protecting the US.  If you want to argue that it helped spend the Soviet Union into oblivion, who is the Soviet Union now?  And, yes, this President is the same guy who thought stealth planes are as invisible as Wonder Woman's jet.
7. Would divert defense spending from areas where it is needed, like developing local defenses against drones.   

It sucks that there really is not a good solution for replacing mutual assured destruction, but wishing it away through massive defense spending on magical thinking is not the way to go.