Theater Missile Defense

Deployment of nuclear and conventional missiles for the purpose of maintaining security in a specific region, or theater. The purpose of theater missile defense is to protect allies from local threats in their region or to address specific security issues and enable credibility in addressing particular threats. Theater missile defense addresses specific defense concerns, which may be unique and vary from region to region.

Theater missile defense primarily refers to defensive, antiballistic missile systems, such as the United [Page 720]States's Patriot missile. Systems such as the Patriot are designed to intercept incoming ballistic missiles before they can strike their intended targets. During the Gulf War of 1991, the Patriot was employed for theater missile defense in Israel and Saudi Arabia to counter the threat of Iraqi SCUD missiles. Although initial assessments suggested that Patriot missiles were highly effective, later analyses cast doubt on the number of incoming Iraqi missiles actually destroyed by Patriots.

Another important feature of theater missile defense is that it may decrease the likelihood of global nuclear war. A premise of theater missile defense is that limited, winnable nuclear war is possible, and appropriate strategies to account for such an outcome must be devised. The focus of disarmament talks throughout the cold War was primarily intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). Ballistic and intermediate ballistic missiles were the weapons of theater defense. These weapons did not differ in terms of their destructive power but rather in terms of their range and, thus, their strategic applicability.

Aside from ballistic missiles positioned on allied territory, another important element of theater strategy was tactical nuclear weapons, which are design for attacking nuclear forces in close quarters. Theater nuclear weapons do not have intercontinental range and may consist of long-range to battlefield nuclear weapons, such as land mines, bombs, and artillery shells. This aspect of theater missile defense in Western Europe was of great concern throughout the Cold War because the United States recognized the vast superiority of Soviet ground forces. The only way of meeting a Soviet conventional threat, it was argued, would be to resort to nuclear weapons. The question, however, was whether or not nuclear conflict could realistically be contained.

The issues of theater missile defense and fighting a limited nuclear war influenced both U.S. and Soviet defense policy throughout the Cold War period. The Soviet Union prepared for the possibility of nuclear war by investing in nuclear-proof bunkers for civilians and the maintenance of emergency food stores. Early in the Cold War, U.S. defense policy with regard to nuclear weapons was premised on the idea that fighting and winning a nuclear war was possible. That stance changed in the early 1960s with the recognition of mutually assured destruction (MAD).

Aside from the construction of private bomb shelters, the United States made no preparations to defend the civilian population from a nuclear war. The U.S. government preferred to imply that they had no first-strike intentions, accepting that a counterattack would easily decimate the civilian population. Another feature of this strategy was targeting Russian population centers rather than military targets. This also made sense, primarily in terms of a counterstrike, rather than a first strike, because it assumed that aiming at military targets would be futile if the missiles were already launched.

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