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U.S. Hopes to Expand Missile Launch Notification
The U.S. Strategic Command hopes that a planned international missile launch notification system would allay fears among lawmakers here of plans to arm submarine-launched ballistic missiles with conventional warheads, Kyodo News reported today (see GSN, May 18). Replacing some sea-based nuclear warheads with conventional tips would boost the U.S. ability to destroy enemy WMD facilities or other sites in a matter of hours during a crisis, Strategic Command has claimed. However, some experts and legislators fear that another nuclear power might mistake a ballistic missile carrying a conventional warhead as a nuclear weapon and initiate an atomic strike. The Senate Armed Services Committee this month approved $127 for the conversion program in fiscal 2007, but restricted spending to $32 million until the Defense Department prepares a report on “nuclear ambiguity issues,” Kyodo reported. Gen. James Cartwright, head of Strategic Command, said confidence-building measures between the atomic powers could help prevent an unintended nuclear exchange. Russia and the United States already conduct mutual inspections of their respective ballistic missile deployments and maintenance. The two countries have also pledged to establish a Joint Data Exchange Center under which they would provide early notification of ballistic missile tests or other launches. “We have what we call confidence-building measures,” Cartwright said. “And they are a set of things that really go from how you train, demonstrating to people other than yourself exactly what a particular weapon does, how it flies, or how it targets, and then what happens when it does, so they can see it and understand it.” The United States hopes that China and other nations would join the center, Cartwright said. Beijing already receives advance notice of U.S. ballistic missile launches, he said. “We don’t have a treaty, but we tell them so that they know,” he said. The Chinese “don’t tell us, they don’t tell the Russians, but we want to make sure” (Kyodo News/Yahoo!News, May 18).
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