Capitol Hill Missile Defense War Game Questioned

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — A U.S. congressman and some nongovernmental analysts have questioned the suggested realism of a missile defense war game played on Capitol Hill last week, challenging the computer-programmed assumptions about the key Ground-based Midcourse Defense system’s interception ability and the quality of the threat it faced (see GSN, Jan. 25).

The ground-based system’s effectiveness has not yet been demonstrated through operationally realistic testing, said Representative Rush Holt (D-N.Y.) in a letter sent to colleagues last week.

“The values used in the simulation are not based on real data — yet they determine what comes out of the simulation.   This should give you considerable skepticism about what these simulations may be showing about actual defense capabilities,” he wrote.

Furthermore, the game’s assumption that the attacking country would not field simple countermeasures to conceal its warheads simplified the challenge of interception unrealistically, according to David Wright, a missile defense analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

“It seems to me they’re emphasizing all of these great things they can do, all these high-tech components, how they can tie these components together, and they’re sort of consciously ignoring the elephant in the room, which is that none of this does any good if you can’t find the target,” he said.

The game produced by the Missile Defense Agency was played some 30 times last week by about 170 people, mostly legislative staff, but also journalists and two lawmakers. 

The unclassified computer-programmed games, played using interconnected computers and communications devices, were intended to give players a “realistic” illustration of the disputed capabilities of U.S. ballistic missile defense systems being put into place, according to organizers.

“Our objective here is simply to increase the understanding of the system,” said retired Navy Vice Adm. David Frost, president of Frost & Associates, a private consulting firm in Colorado Springs. 

“The weapons you’re going to see are close to real, we’re not actually putting the exact classified parameters for these weapons into this computer, but its close enough to give you a feel for what’s going on,” he said.

“Having participated last year in a missile defense war game, I can attest to the realism and complexity of the interactive simulations,” said Senator Wayne Allard (R-Colo.) in a statement distributed at a game played by reporters on Jan. 24.

The game postulated a medium- and long-range missile attack against the United States, Japan and South Korea, by a fictional country located near and apparently representing North Korea.

The game’s scenario used systems currently in place, or expected soon to be fielded for use by the U.S. military as part of the developmental, multisystem missile defense system. They included long-range Ground-based Midcourse Defense interceptors, short-to-medium-range Patriot Advanced Capability 2 interceptors and Aegis Standard Missile 3 interceptors.

The Missile Defense Agency has fielded 10 long-range interceptors so far to operate as part of the system and has received congressional funding to buy 40 more.

A key unrealistic element, according to Holt and others, was the programmed assumption about the probability of each GMD interceptor hitting an enemy warhead streaking through space.

The game presumed each interceptor would have a 70-percent chance of knocking out a warhead. As the game played by reporters played out, nine of 10 interceptors were fired, striking six warheads and missing one. One interceptor failed to leave its silo — as did two in flight tests in late 2004 and early 2005.

A “takeaway” lesson from the exercise, Frost said, was that “it would have been nicer to start with 20 defensive missiles instead of 10. Then you could have shot two at everything and see what happens.”

Holt in his letter questioned whether the chosen kill probability necessarily reflected reality, since the interceptors have never been subjected to operational testing to demonstrate how they would perform against a real threat.

“Because of the extremely limited testing program of U.S. missile defense systems, little or nothing is known about the value of key parameters [reflecting capability assumptions] that need to be put into such simulations,” he wrote.

He cited the recent conclusion by the Pentagon’s acting director of operational, test and evaluation, David Duma, who last year wrote that “there is
insufficient evidence to support a confident assessment” that the U.S. ground-based system provides even limited defense” (see GSN, Jan. 20).

“This is a garbage-in, garbage-out situation,” Philip Coyle, a former senior Pentagon testing director, said in an interview. “If you program your systems with high-performance capability and high reliability in the war game, that’s how they’re going to perform. But that’s not related to reality, where they haven’t achieved yet these kinds of performance reliabilities, even in the scripted tests they’ve done.”

Another criticism has been the game’s assumptions about the threat. It assumed the attacking country could field ICBMs capable of reliably launching warheads at U.S. mainland and Hawaiian Island targets.

North Korea has not demonstrated such a capability, having refrained from flight-testing longer-range ballistic missiles since a suspected satellite launch failed in 1998. There has been speculation, though, that Pyongyang has tried to advance its program by having its technology tested by Iran.

The war game also assumed that the attacking country launching ICBMs would not field countermeasures such as chaff or Mylar balloons to confuse the missile defense systems, according to its organizers.

“We don’t anticipate that the current threat would have countermeasures,” Frost told Global Security Newswire after the game. He was the deputy commander of the U.S. Space Command and earlier the vice commander of NORAD and currently is a member of the advisory boards at U.S. Strategic Command, Northern Command, Air Force Space Command.

Critics said it is unrealistic that a country deploying ICBMs and nuclear warheads would not want and be able to field countermeasures to make the attack more effective.

“The scenario just isn’t consistent it seems to me,” said Union of Concerned Scientists analyst Wright.

He co-authored a report in 2000 that argued that even simple countermeasures would drop the effectiveness of missile defense down toward zero.

“Instead of having eight interceptors against seven targets, suppose each of the missiles released 30 decoys. Now you’ve got eight interceptors against over 200 targets. You can pretty easily confuse the defense by having them see a lot of things they don’t know the signatures of because they haven’t seen them before,” he said.

Frost, speaking at the war game for reporters, suggested countermeasures were a concern of the future.

“You’ve always got to worry about discrimination as things get more sophisticated and there are several programs that are dealing with that,” he said.

He cited research to improve discrimination of warheads from decoys, to enable missiles to fire multiple miniature kill vehicles from a single warhead, and to develop boost-phase defenses for intercepting ICBMs before warheads and countermeasures can separate from the boosting rockets.

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