At the same time, according to a classified Pentagon document recently leaked to the press, the U.S. government is shifting its plans from its longstanding perspective of being ready to fight two wars simultaneously, to the ability to "win decisively" one war.

And in the name of fighting "terrorism," Washington is elevating "homeland defense"--deployment of military forces on U.S. territory--to a central part of its military strategy.

Starting from the initial moves made by the Clinton administration, the Bush White House is taking steps to develop sea-, land, and space-based missile intercept weapons that, if successful, would eventually give Washington a first-strike nuclear capability. This nuclear club could be used to threaten governments not to its liking, particularly north Korea and China, and ultimately its imperialist rivals in Europe.

The Bush-backed missile plan proposes building a "test bed" in Alaska that would include a command center and five missile silos at Fort Greely, near Fairbanks, and another five silos on Kodiak Island, off the southern Alaskan coast. Over the next few years the U.S. military also plans to expand testing and put in place an airborne laser that would be mounted on the nose of a Boeing 747 in order to destroy missiles in the "boost" phase--shortly after takeoff. Ships would be equipped with Aegis radar technology enabling interceptors to be launched against missiles over the ocean.

As an immediate step, the Pentagon is requesting $8.3 billion--a $3 billion increase--in next year's budget for development and deployment of a missile shield. Since the early 1980s some $50 billion has already been spent on this project.

In June in a meeting with NATO defense ministers, U.S. secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld made clear to his European counterparts that the Pentagon intends to move as swiftly as possible to develop and deploy an antiballistic missile shield, even before testing of the system is completed.  
 
'Collision course'
In early July the State Department instructed U.S. embassies around the world to inform foreign governments that Washington planned to test not just land-based interceptor missiles but "other technologies and basing modes such as air- and sea-based capabilities." A department spokesperson added, "These tests will come into conflict with the ABM Treaty in months not years."

In testimony on the same subject before the Senate Armed Services committee, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz stated, "So we are on a collision course. No one is pretending that what we are doing is consistent with that treaty. We have either got to withdraw from it or replace it."

The Antiballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, signed by the U.S. and Soviet governments in 1972, allows research, development, and limited deployment of ground-based antiballistic systems, but forbids deployment of a shield against long-range missiles in any state except North Dakota. It also bars research on and development of sea, space, and mobile ground systems.

Three tests of an interceptor projectile targeting a dummy warhead were conducted during the Clinton presidency, two of them unsuccessful. On July 14 of this year, the Pentagon announced, an interceptor "kill" vehicle fired from Kwajalein atoll in the Marshall Islands successfully hit a dummy warhead 140 miles above the Pacific.

The Republican leadership on Capitol Hill hailed the results of the $100 million test. "We're going to do it," stated Senate minority leader Trent Lott. "We should put this right at the top of the agenda."

Many Democrats in Congress, who argue for building a more limited missile shield, urge a slower deployment timetable with more testing. "If you put this on a fast-track testing regime, it could hamper its ability to move forward," stated Rep. Ellen Tauscher, a Democrat from California.

Democrat Joseph Biden, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, congratulated the military for its successful test but added, "It's not a real world test yet. We have a long way to go."

Following the test, the Pentagon said it intends to conduct up to 17 flight tests involving ground- and sea-launched missiles in the next 18 months. Washington has also said it intends to unilaterally reduce its nuclear arsenal by 1,000 weapons, or nearly one-seventh, in the coming year. This would leave some 6,000 nuclear weapons. The plan includes scrapping 50 MX missiles, 33-B-1 bombers, and replacing nuclear-tipped missiles on two Trident submarines with conventional weapons.

"Why take matters to the point of placing under threat the entire internationally agreed structure of nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation, including its core, the 1972 ABM Treaty?" asked a Russian foreign ministry spokesperson, responding to the most recent U.S. missile shield test.

Both the Chinese and Russian governments have stated that if Washington unilaterally abandons the treaty, they will build a new generation of multiple-warhead nuclear missiles.

In a visit to Moscow, Chinese president Jiang Zemin and Russian president Vladimir Putin signed a treaty of "friendship and cooperation" July 16. The pact, the first such treaty since the Sino-Soviet military pact of 1950, expresses their joint opposition to Washington's missile plans and strengthens military cooperation between the two countries. They also agreed to not aim their strategic nuclear weapons at each other.

Over the past year Russia has become China's largest supplier of weapons, although trade volume between the two countries last year was $8 billion compared with $115 billion of goods exchanged between the United States and China.  
 
Preparing for the war at home
The Pentagon's new strategy document outlines the goal of preparing the U.S. military to fight a war at home. This was reported in the July 13 New York Times but not widely publicized. The paper reported, "For the first time, defense of the American homeland is incorporated into guidelines for American military strategy that are ultimately used to request money for the military."

The plan calls for eliminating the perspective officially adopted by the Pentagon in 1993 of being prepared to fight two major regional wars simultaneously. Instead, their aim will now be to "win decisively" one major war while conducting "small-scale contingencies of limited duration in other areas of the world."

"We haven't been able to do two-major-theater wars for years," an unnamed military officer told the Times. "We paid it lip service. The new terms are supposed to acknowledge the realities of the world today. It's time we matched our forces to our strategy."

Under the Clinton administration the Pentagon changed its structure to include for the first time a North American command and began training its military forces for use inside the United States. Congress in 1999 authorized the Pentagon to place specially trained National Guard units in the largest population centers for possible deployment throughout the country in case of what is deemed a "terrorist" threat.

Washington is also moving to put in place its own rapid reaction intervention force. A Washington Post article reported, "In order to move quickly when a crisis erupts, key combat units from all the armed services would be organized into Global Joint Response Forces capable of setting up operations in a hostile environment within 24 hours, according to the proposal presented by a retired air force general James McCarthy, who headed Rumsfeld's review panel on changing conventional forces."
 
 
Related article:
U.S. war moves at home, abroad  
 
 
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