February 21, 2004 :: Pak Tribune :: News
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control Stephen Rademaker has said that Pakistani missile defense may, “in certain circumstances…contribute to regional stability.” Rademaker added that the “United States was ready to discuss the issue with Pakistan.”
In one sense, the truth of this statement is obvious. Missile defenses, properly balanced and carefully managed, could be a means by which to ease the nuclear missile standoff between Pakistan and India. All the difficulty would lie, of course, in the transfer from a sort of policy of mutually assured destruction to one of mutually assured defense: where defensive systems overcome offensive ones. In another sense, limited missile defenses may be used to level the current offensive strategic balance between the two rival countries. In general, however, the United States would probably do well to promote missile defenses the world over. All that can be done to undermine and destroy the perceived intrinsic superiority of offensive nuclear weapons to defensive ones is likely to be efforts well directed.
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