Archie to SAM: A Short Operational History of Ground-Based Air ...

BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENSE IN THE 1990S
to abandon their missile program in exchange for a booster to
launch satellites into space. The much-emphasized North
Korean threat seemed to be receding. 64
The Russians waged a tough and effective diplomatic campaign
to undermine the BMD program. President Putin’s visits
with American allies were troublesome to NMD proponents,
but Russian and Chinese cooperation was worrisome to US
decision makers. In a joint statement in July 2000, the two
countries called the 1972 ABM treaty “the cornerstone of global
strategic stability and international security” and warned of
“the most grave adverse consequences” if the United States
went ahead with the NMD. 65 In July 2001, Russia and China
signed a friendship pact, with press commentators emphasizing
that the NMD was a major factor in this development. 66 In
another move, the Russians offered to share a theater missile
defense with the West, specifically a boost-phase intercept (BPI)
defense. Hitting hostile missiles as they were being launched
had numerous advantages, as the missile would be a slower
(and thus an easier) target during its first 120 to 210 seconds
of flight. Destruction then would finesse the decoy problem
and bring the missile debris down on the enemy’s homeland.
Such a system based in Russia would cover the United States
from ICBM attacks from North Korea, and most from Iran and
Iraq, although not from Libya nor launches from either China
or Russia. 67 The BPI concept also had support from a number
of long-time critics of BMD, including Theodore Postal, who
opined that the concept “makes tremendously more sense. All
the technology is in hand.” 68 Others noted that BPI would be
one-third cheaper than the Alaska plan and was less threatening
to the Chinese and Russians. The only small Russian
nudge toward the American position was an agreement by
Putin in June that there was cause for concern over the issue
of ballistic missile proliferation. Even here, however, the Russian
generals insisted that the threat from rogue states was
not as urgent as the United States maintained. 69
More serious and certainly more dramatic were test failures.
After achieving a success in its first intercept test in October
1999, the missile missed in January 2000. Because of the
pending decision by President Clinton, the test scheduled in
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