Libya - Option 3: Missile Defenses

Proponents Say: Develop and Deploy Ballistic Missile Defenses (BMD).

• Deploying missile defenses would make the United States less vulnerable to missile threats from Libya. If the United States provided missile defenses to its allies in southern Europe, their vulnerability would likewise be reduced.
• No matter what kinds of agreements the United States negotiates with Libya, the United States will probably never know for sure if Libya has eliminated all of its WMD and long-range missiles.
• The United States must remain ready to defend Israel and other U.S. allies in the region in the event of a conflict with Libya.
• If the United States were someday under threat of a Libyan attack with WMD-tipped missiles, Israel and other U.S. allies in the region might fear that the United States would not defend them against Libya in a crisis. They might judge that the United States would not risk the destruction of a major U.S. city in order to save them from Libya.
• This situation could lead additional U.S. allies to develop WMD of their own to assure their defense.
• Such defensive deployments could reassure U.S. allies and allow the United States to respond forcefully to any Libyan threat.

Opponents Say: Missile Defenses Cannot Provide Reliable and Comprehensive Security.

• At best, even marginally reliable missile defenses will not be available for five to 10 years. Unless and until the United States develops highly effective missile defenses, improved relations, negotiated agreements, and deterrence are the only means to protect the United States and its allies from a potential Libyan missile threat.
• Missile defenses have many technical problems and may never work.
• Even if missile defenses appear to work well in tests, no U.S. president would be prepared to disregard the possibility that they might fail. Thus, even with missile defenses, the United States would consider itself to be at risk and would hesitate to go to war against a country with the potential to attack the United States with WMD-tipped missiles. Because Israel and other U.S. allies in the region would be aware of these concerns, U.S. missile defenses would not increase their confidence in the reliability of the United States as an ally.
• If Libya wished to threaten the United States with WMD during a crisis, it would not need to use missiles. It could smuggle WMD into the United States - or simply declare that it had done so. This alternative could deter the United States from protecting its allies just as effectively as the threat to launch WMD missiles, as U.S. allies are certainly aware. Thus deploying missile defenses will not increase their confidence in the reliability of the United States as an ally.
• To prevent Libya from intimidating the United States and its allies, the allies would have to be protected from Libyan WMD-tipped missiles just as effectively as the United States. If the United States is protected but Israel and other friendly states are not, they may not wish to confront Libya in a crisis even if they can rely on U.S. support, because their cities would be at risk of WMD attack.
• For these reasons, the United States should not place a priority on developing missile defenses. Improved relations, negotiated agreements, and deterrence should be the focus of U.S. foreign policy to limit the use of WMD in this region.

Further Reading:

	CIA, Report to Congress on the Acquisition of Technology Relating to Weapons of Mass Destruction
	U.S. Department of Defense, Proliferation Threat and Response, pages 56-59 on screen.
	Statement by CIA Director George Tenet to Congress, "Worldwide Threat 2001: National Security in a Changing World"
	Vice Admiral Thomas Wilson, "DIA Statement on Global Threats and Challenges Through 2015"
	WMD 411, Policy Options: Ballistic Missile Defense

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