Chapter Thirteen - Excerpt

7/28/2019 Chapter Thirteen - Excerpt

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CHAPTER THIRTEEN

WMD Proliferation, Missile Defence and Outer Space: A Canadian Perspective

James Fergusson and David S. McDonough

This is a pre-print excerpt of a chapter that appears in David S. McDonough, ed., Canadas

National Security in the Post-9/11 World: Strategy, Interests, and Threats (Toronto: Universityof Toronto Press, 2012), 253-268.

Canadian concerns over weapons of mass destruction (WMD) proliferation are unlikely

to subside or fade in the post-9/11 era. The failure to discover asubstantialWMD program in

Iraq,1 while appearing to vindicate a more sanguine approach to manage and control the WMD

threat, should not overshadow the inexorable proliferation of WMD technology to state and non-

state actors alike. North Korea and Iran remain serious proliferation challenges, with the former

twice demonstrating its nuclear capabilities (2006 and 2009) and the latter quite open in its desire

for a nuclear fuel cycle capable of generating weapons-grade fissile material. It would also be

imprudent to dismiss the possibility that groups with a clear willingness to undertake mass-

casualty terrorist attacks could by their own devices or in cooperation with hostile regional

proliferators be armed with WMD in the future.

Canada is certainly not immune from a direct attack, sitting as it does within the second

inner ring if not exactly at the bulls eye of the terrorist target, nor would its national interests

be unaffected by the consequences of an attack elsewhere. Canadian policy-makers are

fortunately not totally unfamiliar with the dangers of WMD, having lived along the flight path

between the nuclear arsenals of two superpowers long before it was in the inner ring of the

1 The Iraq Survey Group did not find a substantial WMD programs or the large quantities of weapons and stockpilesthat many scholars and intelligence analysts suspected. But it did find evidence that Iraq continued WMD-relatedresearch activities, and retained an ability to quickly reconstitute its chemical and biological weapon programs oncethe sanctions regime was lifted.


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terrorist target,2 and the country proved quite active in the non-proliferation, arms control and

disarmament (NACD) discussions of the Cold War. Yet Canada would do well to recognize the

differing characteristics of the WMD threat in the current strategic environment in which the

horizontal proliferation of WMD to rogue states and international terrorist groups takes

precedence over the vertical proliferation of nuclear weapons amongst the established nuclear

powers. This does not mean that one should simply ignore the dangers of the sizable and

modernizing arsenals of these major powers. But it does mean that Canada should acknowledge

that the threat of a catastrophic nuclear exchange involving thousands of weapons has receded

and the possibility of a much smaller use of WMD has arguably increased, and adapt its NACD

policies accordingly.

This chapter seeks to re-examine Canadas policies towards WMD proliferation and offer

suggestions for this particularly salient component of its overarching national security strategy. It

begins with an overview of the current threat, with specific reference to how proliferation may

impact Canadas national interests. Any renewed Canadian approach in dealing with WMD

should recognize the potential strategic utility of ballistic missile defence (BMD). As such, this

analysis will provide further examination on Canadas potential role in BMD, and conclude with

an analytical excursion on how Canadian participation in some future missile defence project

could intersect with strategic developments in outer space.

Proliferation and Canadas National Interests

2 The terms second inner ring and bulls eye have been frequently used by Canadian Senator Colin Kenny, andhave appeared in a number of prominent reports in his Standing Senate Committee on National Security andDefence. The phrase "along the flight path was coined by the late David Cox in reference to the fact that, in theevent of a nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union, intercontinental bombers on either sidewould traverse Canadian airspace.


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WMD was initially associated with nuclear weapons, given the genuinely massive

destructive effects of its atomic and thermonuclear variants. Yet there was an understanding that

technological advancement could make other types of weapons adaptable to mass destruction,

notably with the addition of biological (viruses, bacteria and toxins), chemical (blister, nerve and

other agents) and radiological weapons. Biological weapons are the only non-nuclear type of

WMD that approach a strategic nuclear capability. Yet biological agents are also difficult to

weaponize and disseminate. They are vulnerable to passive defences and meteorological

conditions,3 and often their prolonged incubation period limits their utility for strategic attacks

against civilians, though incapacitating agents and toxins like botulinum can have tactical utility.

In contrast, chemical weapons do not approach the lethality of either nuclear or biological

weapons, and face comparable dissemination and vulnerability problems as bio-weapons; while

potentially employable in a tactical battlefield capacity, their effectiveness would be severely

degraded against protected troops. Radiological dirty bombs rely on conventional explosions

to disperse the radioactive material and are generally envisioned as a potential threat emanating

primarily from terrorist groups.

The most devastating, if not necessarily likely, WMD scenario facing Canada remains a

nuclear exchange involving the major nuclear powers, which could involve the direct targeting of

Canadian centres or, in the case of a more limited strike against the US, result in radioactive

fallout drifting into Canadian territory. The need to manage vertical proliferation in which

quantitative or qualitative changes in the nuclear arsenals of these states could abet strategic

instability and increase the probability of nuclear war formed a key pillar within Canadas

3 Yet these vulnerabilities can be mitigated. The US successfully performed a number of biological weapon fieldtests in the 1950s-1960s, while the Soviet Union had genetically-engineered immune/UV-resistant biological agentsand developed refrigerated warheads and specialized dispersal systems for their ballistic missiles to maximizedelivery effectiveness.


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NACD policies during the Cold War.4 But Canada needs to recognize that the threat posed by

vertical proliferation, especially as it concerns the American, Russian and Chinese nuclear

arsenals, has fundamentally changed. Few envision a severe nuclear crisis taking place in the

foreseeable future, with perhaps the sole exception resulting from a China-US military

confrontation over Taiwan. Despite all three countries modernizing their strategic forces, it is

still far from apparent that there is an incipient arms race the hostile intentions for any such

action-reaction phenomenon is simply not present.5 Of course, this does not mean that vertical

proliferation has become totally benign. The launch-on-warning postures in the US and Russia,

and perhaps someday in China, do increase the possibility of an inadvertent or accidental nuclear

war, while unchecked vertical proliferation could eventually encourage the transition to a more

virulent sort of geo-strategic rivalry. But it does mean that vertical nuclear proliferation, while

certainly not risk free, is no longer as salient an issue.

Canadas most pressing security challenge is the proliferation of WMD technology and

weapons to states and non-state actors beyond the major nuclear powers. Nuclear arsenals have

long since proliferated to Israel, Pakistan and India. A number of states already have suspected

offensive biological and chemical weapon capabilities and some seem intent in adding nuclear

weapons to their WMD arsenal; and perhaps most worrisome, these latent proliferators have

seemingly advanced covert nuclear programs under a faade of adherence to the Non-

Proliferation Treaty as North Korea openly accomplished and Iran (and possibly others) are

4

Canada supported US nuclear policies as a means to buttress Allied deterrence against the Soviets, but alsosupported a number of arms control measures meant to mitigate the dangers of their nuclear arsenals. For a goodaccount, see Douglas Ross, Arms Control and Disarmament and the Canadian Approach to Global Order, inCanadas International Security Policy, eds. David Dewitt and David Leyton-Brown (Toronto: Prentice HallCanada, 1995).5 China is increasingly modernizing its arsenal of ballistic missiles, while Russia has begun deployment of its nextgeneration intercontinental ballistic missile that will have multiple independently-targetable re-entry vehiclewarheads and potentially new maneuvering re-entry vehicle warheads designed to penetrate missile defences. Yetthese should be seen as measures to only recalibrate the strategic balance though there are certainly other political,bureaucratic, and technological reasons for their development.


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possibly following. The A. Q. Khan network, involved in trading nuclear technology with a

number of developing states, has also brought into question the utility of current supply-side

measures. These second-tier proliferation networks reflect another worrisome trend the

presence of non-state actors as both suppliers ofandrecipients for WMD technology. Terrorist

groups like al Qaeda have shown both a clear interest in WMD and a clear willingness to commit

mass-casualty attacks, and it would not be absurd to imagine that a future terrorist group will

eventually be able to overcome technological hurdles to develop an effective WMD capability

or to acquire weapons (such as the infamous Russian suitcase nuke) from the black market.

Proliferation to these rogue states and non-state actors pose a direct threat to Canadian

national security interests. Terrorists could employ WMD against Canadian centers with

disastrous results, potentially as a proof of possession attack in order to coerce the US.6 The

possibility of a rogue state supplying WMD to terrorist proxies, hemorrhaging weapons in the

event of a state collapse, or undertaking a bolt-out-of-the-blue attack, unlikely as these

scenarios may be, cannot be discounted. Canada might also find itself in a US-led military

conflict with a proliferating state, in which case intra-war deterrence becomes far more

uncertain. It would not be difficult to imagine an adversary employing chemical weapons in a

tactical capacity on the battlefield or pre-delegating the use of nuclear or biological weapons to

strike regional American allies or North America as a last ditch deterrent or simply as a means

to enact revenge against its enemies and, given the prospect of nuclear retaliation, its own

population as well.7 The strategic implications are undoubtedly significant; proliferators may be

6 As noted in Douglas Ross, Foreign policy challenges for Paul Martin: Canadas international security policy in anera of American hyperpower and continental vulnerability, International Journal58, 4 (Autumn 2003): 554.7 This Hitler in the bunker scenario could have arisen during the 1990-91 Gulf War. Iraq had deployed aerialbombs and SCUD missiles armed with biological and chemical weapons and pre-delegated control of these weaponsin the event of a cut in command and control links as would have happened with a US military drive to Baghdad.Chemical weapons could have been used against coalition troops, but a more worrisome possibility was a bio-


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seen as undeterable relative to a threat of nuclear retaliation, and the capacity to threaten the US

directly, in the absence of a viable damage-limitation capability, could undermine the willingness

of the US to intervene into regional conflicts and protect allies from threats of nuclear blackmail.

Canadian security would be most directly endangered by the use of WMD against its

industrial centres and population, whether civilians at home or soldiers fighting in a WMD

environment. But our national interests could also be adversely affected in more indirect ways.

Aside from the possibility of fallout from radioactive contamination or biological contagions, a

WMD attack on the US would likely result in a dramatic tightening of the Canada-US border,

with catastrophic consequences for the cross-border traffic underpinning our economy; the

collapse of the current international trading system itself might not be unimaginable. Canada

would also probably need to adapt to a seismic shift in American grand strategy; and whether the

US turns inward towards neo-isolationism or pursues ever more ferocious military policies

abroad, the results will likely prove equally consequential for global order. One should also keep

in mind that a direct attack on the United States might not even be necessary a regional conflict

involving WMD in South Asia or the Middle East or even an acceleration of horizontal

proliferation could themselves result in a gradual shift towards such a future.

Canada has traditionally relied on a number of multilateral non-proliferation agreements

the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Chemical Weapons Convention, the Biological and Toxin

Weapons Convention, the Missile Technology Control Regime, the Nuclear Suppliers Group,

among others to contain the horizontal spread of WMD. There have also been some notable

successes in reversing this trend, including the denuclearization of South Africa, Ukraine,

Kazakhstan and Belarus; the Libyan decision to renounce its WMD programs; the curtailment of

weapon attack against Israel and consequent Israeli nuclear retaliation. See Amatzia Baram, An Analysis of IraqiWMD Strategy, The Nonproliferation Review 8, 2 (Summer 2001): 25-39.


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the nuclear ambitions of Brazil, Argentina, and a number of American allies; and the effective

elimination of Iraqs WMD ambitions with the 2003 Iraq War. Yet it is also clear that the

growing number of multilateral agreements within the non-proliferation regime have not stopped

proliferation, and it is even debatable whether it has even slowed this trend especially given the

presence of countries with suspected biological and chemical weapon capabilities that are party

to the chemical and biological weapons conventions and the evidence of latent nuclear

proliferation abetted by the Non-Proliferation Treaty agreement itself, a dangerous loophole that

no Additional Protocol will likely fully close.

Canada should continue its historic tradition of supporting the existing non-proliferation

regime.8 But reliance on these agreements, while likely necessary to prevent the further spread of

WMD technology, is no longer sufficient to contain this threat. Canada has fortunately begun to

recognize this fact. The country committed $1-billion over a ten-year period for the G8 (Group

of Eight) Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction,

which expands the US cooperative threat reduction effort to safeguard and destroy Russias

WMD stockpiles and ensure personnel involved in its massive WMD complex are properly

employed. It is also a participant of the Proliferation Security Initiative, a loose coalition of the

willing arrangement directed at intercepting the transport of WMD and their delivery systems,

while following the American lead closer to home by strengthening border security against the

WMD terrorist threat. Meanwhile, Canada has shown clear willingness as a Nuclear Supplier

Group member to support the Indo-US Nuclear Agreement, which is a tentative step towards

accepting the reality that WMD in the hands of some countries (India) are less risky than in the

8 Canada had historically developed significant technical expertise on matters of WMD verification. This expertisewas facilitated by creation of the Verification Research Unit in the Department of Foreign Affairs and InternationalTrade, though this unit was discontinued in 1996.


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hands of others (North Korea); this is especially significant given Canadas historic involvement

in Indias nuclear program and pioneering role in nuclear export controls.

Other initiatives to deal with WMD proliferation will likely prove more controversial.

The United States, for instance, has increasingly turned to counterproliferation as an important

supplement to its traditional support for the non-proliferation regime. Counterproliferation would

ensure that the US has some protection against the WMD threat, most notably with active and

passive defences, as well as counterforce capabilities (conventional and nuclear) to deter the use

of WMD or pre-emptively destroy them. Canada has found some of these initiatives worthwhile,

most notably with the Proliferation Security Initiative and the need for passive defences and

consequence management, but it also retains some serious concerns. Active defences like BMD

have long been considered anathema to Canadas traditional NACD policies, and the same can

be said of recent US nuclear weapon developments, such as the refinement of its hard-target kill

capability, the development of prompt global strike, and the now stalled efforts at low-yield

bunker-busters. Indeed, these initiatives are seen as synergistic components for a purported US

first-strike capability,9 and as such destabilizing to the fragile strategic balance with Russia and

China; their deleterious impact to the non-proliferation regime is meanwhile criticized as a key

driver for horizontal proliferation.

Yet Canada should keep in mind that it has greater latitude to support initiatives that

might have been seen as dangerous in the Cold War. Russia and China may rhetorically object to

these initiatives and even adopt modest measures to secure their arsenals survivability, but this

does not entail the beginnings of an arms race, nor does it increase the possibility of a nuclear

crisis that could realistically result in a nuclear war. It is also not improbable that these US

9 See Keir Lieber and Daryl Press, The End of MAD? The Nuclear Dimension of US Primacy,InternationalSecurity 30, 4 (Spring 2006): 7-44. For an excellent critique, see Bruce Blair and Chen Yali, The Fallacy ofNuclear Primacy, China Security (Autumn 2006): 51-77.


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strategic initiatives could be formulated so as to minimize any lingering first-strike anxiety in

both Moscow and Beijing and minimize their current reliance on launch-on-warning.10 And

given the overwhelming conventional military disparity between the US and proliferating states,

it is absurd to assume that the sizable nuclear capabilities of established powers is the crux

behind a rogue states WMD ambitions. Simply put, nuclear weapons retentionism and nuclear

targeting of non-nuclear states, while contrary to the precepts of the Non-Proliferation Treaty

itself, are unlikely to significantly increase the value of WMD for these proliferators. Even that

small risk should, however, be weighed against the value that counterproliferation could have in

buttressing deterrence, ensuring a proportional pre-emptive or retaliatory strike if required, and

providing a modicum of protection in the event of deterrence failure not to mention re-assuring

US allies on the credibility of its extended deterrence guarantees and thereby dampening their

own potential nuclear ambitions.11

BMD, Outer Space and Canadas Options

As a function of the relationship between geography and technology, the primary (if not

only) direct military threat to Canada, its population and industrial centres is found in the

aerospace domain.12 In recognizing this primacy during the Cold War, Canada, in conjunction

with the United States, invested significant resources and established the binational North

10 The US could reduce its hard-target kill capability and reliance on launch-on-warning for a significant portion ofits strategic nuclear arsenal, especially its sea-based force, while retaining both BMD and a number of highlyaccurate, low-yield and earth-penetrating bunker-busters. This limited couterforce capability could be used for

prompt global strikes, but would not pose a significant decapitation or silo-busting threat to Russia or China. Aresponsive nuclear infrastructure would be critical, as it would ensure that the US has the capability to make rapidchanges to its nuclear force posture if required and even more sizable reductions in its nuclear weapons stockpile.11 The issue of comparative risk is forcefully made in Frank Harvey, Smoke and Mirrors: Global Terrorism and theIllusion of Multilateral Security (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004).12 The prospects of a land invasion of Canadian territory by a hostile nation are near zero, as few, if any, nationshave the capacity to project and sustain land forces on the continent of North America. Notwithstanding the securityimportance of the sea lines of communication (SLOC) to Canadas economy and its ability to support forcesdeployed overseas and allies, maritime direct military threats to Canada are also aerospace in nature - long-rangecarrier-based strike aircraft or a range of naval platforms to launch either ballistic or cruise missiles.


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American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) to meet the initial threat posed by long-

range Soviet bombers. With the onset of the ballistic missile age, the relevance of the air-

breathing threat to Canada and North America declined, notwithstanding its partial rejuvenation

with the advent of air-launched cruise missiles in the 1980s. Nonetheless, ballistic missiles

armed with nuclear warheads emerged as the direct military threat by the 1960s, and in the

absence of the capacity to intercept incoming ballistic missile warheads, Canada relied upon the

US strategic retaliatory deterrent to ensure its security.13 In so doing, successive Canadian

governments accepted the fundamental premises of nuclear deterrence and mutual assured

destruction as the only means to prevent a devastating nuclear strike against Canadian targets.

Moreover, they also uncritically accepted the idea that any attempt to defend against a ballistic

missile attack would exacerbate vertical proliferation and undermine the stability of the mutual

deterrence relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Yet the political-strategic conditions that informed assumptions about mutual deterrence

requirements during the Cold War have disappeared. WMD proliferation has emerged as a major

security concern, with fears that proliferating states, specifically North Korea and Iran today, will

acquire the capability to target North America with in the worst case scenario nuclear-tipped

inter-continental ballistic missiles.Finally, the US has developed and deployed a range of BMD

systems in direct response to the strategic implications of proliferation. In the post-Cold War

strategic world, marked by both WMD proliferation and rapidly maturing BMD technologies,

Canadian thinking and policy has remained fully entrenched in the past. Defence options, either

to deter or manage deterrence failure, are implicitly left to Canadas allies; and the defence of

13 The US did develop a modest damage-limitation capability during the brief operation life of the Safeguard Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) system. The single Safeguard ABM site deployed near Cavalier, North Dakota, consistingof 30 long-range Spartan, and 70 short-range Sprint nuclear-tipped interceptors as allowed under the 1974 Protocolto the ABM Treaty, was declared operational in the spring of 1975, and subsequently canceled in the fall of 1975.


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Canadian cities and industrial centres from a potential attack by a new nuclear state is effectively

left in the hands of the United States. During the Cold War, North America was part of an

integrated Soviet target set, such that any attack on Canada would likely have coincided with an

attack on the US. Canada could therefore credibly rely upon US strategic retaliatory forces to

deter any such attack. This was in contrast to concerns about the credibility of the US extended

strategic nuclear deterrent to North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)-Europe, which

informed continuous debates about NATO nuclear strategy and provided a rationale for

independent French and British nuclear forces to ensure the coupling of US strategic nuclear

forces to the defence of Europe.

14

Today, Canadian policy-makers have implicitly assumed that the credibility of the

extended US nuclear umbrella remains in place, and has been further supplemented by US

missile defences. Canada can rely on both to protect its cities and industrial centres, even though

it has no input into US strategic decision-making, defence priorities and missile defence strategy.

It is simply assumed that these new nuclear states will either view North America as a single

integrated target set or target only the US given the limited size of their future strategic arsenals.

Moreover, it is assumed as a function of current technology and the polar trajectories of

incoming warheads from East Asia (North Korea) or the Middle East (Iran), that the US will

have no choice but to defend Canadian centres from an attack, which could be intentional or

simply the result of poor guidance systems. Given the location of the current (and perhaps final)

land-based missile defence layers Fort Greely in Alaska, Vandenberg Air Force Base in

14 Once the Soviet Union acquired the ballistic missile capability to target the US, the credibility of the US threat tocommit suicide to defend its European allies was at issue. While neither NATO, the French, nor the Britishpossessed an assured destruction capability, each could threaten to inflict significant damage on the Soviet Unionby destroying its major cities. In so doing, the Soviet Union would be crippled, with the US undamaged andstrategically dominant. In such a scenario, the Soviet Union would likely face little choice but to strike at the US,thereby directly engaging US strategic retaliatory forces. In effect, NATO, France and the United Kingdom eachensured the credible coupling of US strategic nuclear forces to deter war in Europe. For a general overview, seeLawrence Freedman, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, Second Edition (London: Macmillan, 1989).


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California, and in the near future possibly Poland unless US early warning and warhead

tracking capabilities are able to identify the specific target of an incoming warhead prior to the

point at which an interceptor can be launched, the US will have no choice but to intercept every

warhead in succession in order to ensure that US centres are defended. If, however, Canada is

conceived and specified as a separate independent target by such states, and/or US capabilities

are able to identify the actual target prior to the initial or subsequent interceptor attempts, then

Canadian vulnerability to strategic threats and attack will be high, and its ability to rely on the

US questionable.

The United States, as the global superpower and leading Western nation, is likely to be

the primary target for these new nuclear states as a means to deter American intervention

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Chapter Thirteen - Excerpt