Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States
Appendix III: Unclassified Working Papers


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Supplier Nations: Robbin Laird, Tim McCarthy, Keith Payne, David Smith April 15, 1998 On April 15, 1998, System Planning Corporation hosted a roundtable discussion session for the Rumsfeld Commission on "Barriers to Proliferation and Pathways for Transfer." SPC assembled Ambassador David Smith from Global Horizons, Inc., Dr. Robbin Laird of International Communications and Strategic Assessments, Dr. Keith Payne and Dr. Robert Rudney of the National Institute for Public Policy, and Mr. Tim McCarthy, from the Monterey Institute of International Studies, and Deputy Chief Inspector with the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM). This paper summarizes the discussion and highlights areas of consensus and disagreement. Challenges to the Nonproliferation Regime Ambassador David Smith asserted that the United States faces three major challenges to keeping the international nonproliferation regime both intact and effective: Exercise Leadership to prevent the unraveling of current international cooperation--Smith argued that our allies have grown tired of U.S. unilateral sanctions, and view the United States as hypocritical because of its commercial dealings with China, particularly with regard to the President's decision to implement the 1985 U.S.-China agreement for nuclear cooperation. Smith asserted that it is only a matter of time before our European allies dismiss American unilateral sanctions and enhance the scope of their commercial relationships with nations such as Libya, Iran and Cuba. Any such cooperation could further weaken the United States nonproliferation efforts. Differing World Views--Smith stated that America and Europe view the world much more differently. The United States sees itself as the world's only superpower with political, economic and security interests all around the globe. The United States is thus concerned about "power projection forces, forced entry, missile blackmail and the like." Europeans, however, do not see themselves as an equally important player. They are far more concerned about commercial relationships, and are generally confident that the United States will handle threats to international security. Differing Patterns of Behavior--Smith also asserted that our nonproliferation and counterproliferation initiatives can be strengthened by continuing to cooperate closely with our European allies, by trying to understand our differences, and by finding common ground between us. Our allies will continue to trade with nations of proliferation concern, although they will not likely transfer missiles or missile related technology. Taking this into account, the United States may have to adopt a more flexible strategy in order to gain better cooperation from our friends regarding missile proliferation and other important matters, including joint planning for the near certainty that some nations of concern will acquire ballistic missiles in the future. The Networking Dynamic Dr. Robbin Laird asserted that the globalization of the world economy has created network webs between nations, and throughout regions. He concluded that governments have lost control over important parts of their economic and security agendas. Commercial entities have built relations with one another across national boundaries. This has resulted in the diffusion of power in the modern economy. These new networks thus create an entirely different context within which proliferation will occur. As a result, national export control systems will become less effective in controlling the spread of WMD and their delivery systems. Nowhere is the network more noticeable than in the commercial space launch business. The dramatic upsurge in the space launch business in recent years has generated a number of global competitors and distributed infrastructure. Free market economics will drive the networking of enterprises and the diffusion of manufacturing technologies and system integration know-how across territorial boundaries. The creation of this global economic infrastructure will exacerbate the proliferation problem, with the United States and its allies at the center of the system.


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