U.S. Plans:  Pentagon Plans East Coast Missile Defense

U.S. defense officials are planning a missile defense system to cover the East Coast of the United States, and the Pentagon might position an interceptor base in Maine, the Washington Times reported today (see GSN, Dec. 17).

The revelation comes on the heels of announcements that the United States plans to field a rudimentary missile defense system in 2004 with interceptor bases in Alaska and California.

The East Coast missile defense system would focus on missile threats from Europe and the Middle East, and could also establish interceptors in Britain, Hungary or Poland, the Times reported.  The governments of those countries have secretly told the United States that they are interested in a joint missile defense system, according to the Times (see related GSN story, today; Bill Gertz, Washington Times, Dec. 19).

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Israel:  Newly Installed System Locates Missile Impact Sites

Wary of an Iraqi chemical or biological weapons attack, the Israeli Defense Forces yesterday debuted a system to locate the point of impact of ballistic missiles landing in unpopulated Israeli areas, Ha’aretz reported today (see GSN, May 29).

The new system — known as Roman Temple — consists of several stations and high-altitude cameras to observe specific locations and track missiles in the final phase of their trajectories, Ha’aretz reported (see GSN, March 8).

Roman Temple is intended to provide coverage of open areas where a ballistic missile attack might go undetected, according the Israeli Home Front Command.  The cameras, which can monitor distances of several kilometers, are designed to alert emergency workers to begin decontaminating an area as soon as possible, Ha’aretz reported (see GSN, Aug. 23).

Officials will be able to lower alert levels in other areas after detecting the ballistic missile impact site, according to Ha’aretz (Amnon Barzliai, Ha’aretz, Dec. 19).

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U.S. Plans:  Deployment Will Lack Key, Proven Systems, Critics Say

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — U.S. President George W. Bush’s directive yesterday to begin deploying land- and sea-based missile defense capabilities in 2004 and 2005 is drawing mixed reviews in the United States, with critics charging the key technologies should be proven to work before they are deployed (see GSN, Dec. 17).

The core of the plan calls for the Missile Defense Agency to deploy 20 ground-based interceptors at Fort Greely, Alaska, and at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., by the end of 2005.

“While we support continued research on these efforts, we believe that deployment is a premature and unwise move,” wrote former Senators Gary Hart (D-Colo.) and Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.) and former Assistant Secretary of Defense Lawrence Korb, in a letter to Bush following the announcement.

They noted a failed test of the core system, the ground-based, mid-course interceptor earlier this month (see GSN, Dec. 11), and said many essential components of planned U.S. missile defenses “will not even exist by 2004.”

Two satellite systems and a critical radar, they wrote, will not be in place for many years and the choice of a booster rocket for the system has not yet been made (see GSN, Dec. 9).

They added that further tests involving Aegis cruisers have only been successful 70 percent of the time (see GSN, Nov. 22), that those missiles have not yet been proven against real targets, and that a recent Pentagon study concluded they may not be fast enough to intercept long-range missiles (see GSN, Sept. 3).

With those and other “technological hurdles, any deployment in 2004 will be little more than a political gesture,” they wrote.

MDA Director Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish told a congressional committee this year the agency would not be able to conduct operationally realistic flight tests of the midcourse defense system before 2004 (see GSN, July 19).

Kadish also said two key components of the system would not be in place until after 2004 — an X-Band radar, which would be used for tracking enemy warheads, and space-based missile-detecting satellites designed to provide improved early warning of missile launches.

Despite the need for more development, Kadish said yesterday the system was ready for deployment and he showed a video of successful intercepts, which he said demonstrated that the system was ready.

“When you look across the board, we have made, I think, significant progress in our overall hit-to-kill technology.  And that’s why we have gained the confidence that we could take this next, modest step,” said Kadish.

David Wright, of the Union of Concerned Scientists called the tests conducted in the last two years “highly scripted and artificial” showing “nothing about the ability of the system to work against a realistic attack.”

“The key problem remains that of decoys and countermeasures — steps an attacker can and certainly will take to make identifying the warhead essentially impossible,” he said.

At yesterday’s Pentagon briefing, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the deployment would provide a very modest capability, and that further research and development would be needed.

“It would be a very preliminary, modest capability, and you would be learning — it would be in a testing and learning mode,” he said.

Deploying such preliminary systems, he said, would “provide you some limited capability to deal with a limited number of ballistic missiles.”

Rumsfeld denied the charge the decision was politically motivated.

“It is driven by acute rationality. There isn’t anything we’re doing in this department that it would be accurate to suggest is rooted in politics.  That’s just false,” he said.

“It will be an evolutionary program,” Rumsfeld said.  “I like the feeling, the idea, of beginning and putting something in the ground or in the air or at sea, and getting comfortable with it, and using it and testing it, and learning from that,” he added.

Congressional Reaction

The announcement was praised in Congress by Republicans and criticized by Democrats.

“I applaud the president for taking an evolutionary approach, starting with modest initial capabilities that can quickly enhance our ability to deter and defend against emerging near-term threats,” said Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.) in a statement.  “This will allow us to gradually enhance these capabilities over time as new technologies are developed and we work toward our goal of protecting our territory and our cities,” he said.

On the other hand, “President Bush’s announcement today that he plans to deploy missile defense systems starting in 2004 violates common sense by determining to deploy systems before they have been tested and shown to work,” departing Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said in a statement.

“Under the normal acquisition process for all weapons programs, we have insisted, until now, that systems be tested and demonstrated to be operationally effective before a deployment decision is made,” he said.

Surpassing Earlier Plans

Yesterday’s announcement goes well beyond previously announced plans for deploying five ground-based interceptors and a “Cobra Dane” radar installation in Alaska by the end of 2004.  Those systems were to have been designated for testing but available in an emergency to defend U.S. territory from a limited, long-range ballistic missile attack across the Pacific.

The new plan is intended to provide limited defense against ballistic missiles from Northeast Asia and the Middle East by the end of 2005.  It calls for deploying 20 ground-based missiles for defending against long-range, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and 20 sea-based missiles on three ships, for defending against short- to medium-range ballistic missiles.  Supplementing those interceptors would be hundreds of additional Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) systems designed to intercept short- and medium-range ballistic missiles (see GSN, Dec. 4).

According to the Pentagon, six ground-based interceptors would be deployed at Fort Greely and four at Vandenberg Air Force Base in 2004.  Those would be followed by 10 more interceptors at Fort Greely in 2005.

To detect enemy missile launches and to guide U.S. interceptors, the plan would use land-, sea-, and space-based sensors, including “existing early warning satellites, an upgraded radar now located at Shemya[, Alaska,] a new sea-based X-band radar, and  … radars and other sensors now on Aegis cruisers and destroyers,” according to Pentagon briefers.

The plan, though, is subject to congressional funding.  At yesterday’s Pentagon briefing, senior officials said the deployment plan would cost approximately $1.5 billion in 2004 and 2005.  That would be an increase of the $16 billion the missile agency plans to spend on research, testing and development during that time period.  The agency also will seek an additional $386 million to pay the Navy for using the USS Lake Erie for sea-based research, according to the Pentagon.

The plan depends also upon allied cooperation.  The administration is requesting permission from the United Kingdom and Denmark to upgrade existing early warning radars in Britain and Greenland (see GSN, Dec. 17).  Some initial reaction from some political figures in those countries has been critical.

Next Steps

Beyond 2005, the Missile Defense Agency may seek an unspecified number of additional ground- and sea- based interceptors, PAC-3s, and enhanced radars and other sensor capabilities, according to the Pentagon briefers.

The Pentagon has been researching and developing other types of systems for knocking threatening warheads out of the sky.  The announced plan also calls for deploying some of those after 2005, including the Theater High-Altitude Area Defense systems designed to intercept short- and medium-range missiles at high altitude, airborne lasers (see GSN, Dec. 10), and a new family of interceptors for use against enemy missiles soon after they are launched.

The agency also seeks development and testing of “space-based defenses, specifically space-based kinetic energy (hit to kill) interceptors and advanced target tracking satellites,” a press release said.

The deployment announcement gave no indication of how extensive U.S. missile defense deployments ultimately would be.

“There is no final or fixed missile defense architecture.  Rather, the composition of missile defenses, including the number, type, and location of systems deployed, will change over time to meet the changing threat and take advantage of technological developments,” Kadish said at the Pentagon briefing.

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U.S. Plans:  Bush Administration Announces Anti-Missile Deployment Plans

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration today reaffirmed the president’s plan to deploy the first phase of a national missile defense system in 2004 that would use several complex technologies now in various stages of research and development that have not been proven to work together under realistic conditions (see GSN, Feb. 28).

The plan, announced by White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, calls for deploying 10 ground-based interceptor missiles in Alaska in 2004 and an additional 10 by 2006 for destroying long-range enemy warheads in space.

The system also will involve sea-based interceptors, additional advanced Patriot theater missile interceptors, and sensors on land, sea and in space, according to the announcement.

Fleischer also said the Pentagon also has formally requested British and Danish participation in the missile defense effort, which, if accepted, would make it officially a trans-Atlantic effort (see related GSN story, today).  Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is expected to provide more details at a press briefing this afternoon.

Previously, the stated Bush administration plan was to build a missile defense infrastructure across the Pacific Ocean, including five or six missiles at Fort Greely, Alaska, ostensibly for testing purposes, but which could be activated in an emergency for defense.

The Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency has for years been developing the so-called “test bed,” across the Pacific.  Almost immediately following the U.S. abandonment of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in June (see GSN, June 13), contractors broke ground to construct the missile silos at Fort Greely (see GSN, Dec. 11).  The deployed system will build on the test bed.

President George W. Bush had vowed during his election campaign to put a system in place by 2004 that could defend the United States against a limited intercontinental ballistic missile attack.

Former President Bill Clinton decided in September 2000 against early deployment, citing concerns the technology was not yet proven under realistic conditions.

Question of Reliable Protection

A Bush statement released by Fleischer said, “We have adopted a new concept of deterrence that recognizes that missile defenses will add to our ability to deter those who may contemplate attacking us with missiles.”

In the view of retired Navy Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan, former director of the Center for Defense Information, the system still is not ready for deployment.

“I would not rely on this system, I would rely on other offensive systems to take out the threat,” he said.  “Can you imagine any president, that if he builds this system, that he’s going to hide behind it?  If the system is not 100 percent kill-perfect, it is not a good system in this case.” 

The Bush statement also described the deployment decision as “another important stop” to countering ballistic missile threats, deploying “initial capabilities” that have emerged “from our research and development program.”

The statement acknowledged that the system’s technologies were in research development.

“While modest, these capabilities will add to America’s security and serve as a starting point for improved and expanding capabilities later, as further progress is made in researching and developing missile defense technologies and in light of changes in the threat,” it said.

Representative Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, praised the announced plan in a statement as “prudent.”

“Over the last few years, we have demonstrated a degree of technological maturity that permits us to proceed with a reasonable degree of confidence,” it said.

Different Opinions on Readiness

The decision to deploy comes as the various critical technologies involved, such as interceptors, radar and information management systems remain in various stages of research, development and testing, all of which is expected to continue throughout the decade.

Missile Defense Agency Director Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish told a congressional committee this year the agency would not be able to conduct operationally realistic flight tests of the midcourse defense system before 2004 (see GSN, July 19).  Kadish then said two key components of the system would not be in place until after 2004 — an X-Band radar, which would be used for tracking the enemy missile, and space-based missile-detecting satellites designed to provide improved early warning of missile launches.

Critics have questioned whether the tens of billions of dollars effort will ever produce an effective system, arguing that current U.S. technology continues to face significant technological challenges and that any system could be easily fooled by enemy decoys and countermeasures.  They have charged, and the agency’s top officials publicly conceded, that testing has not yet approached real world conditions.

Administration officials in recent weeks, nevertheless, have declared that recent testing has proven the system could work effectively.

“We no longer need to experiment, to demonstrate or prevaricate.  We need to get on with this and I’m confident we will,” Kadish told a London conference on missile defense last month.

“Sometime in the next five years or so we will have effective defenses against a multiple range of threats,” he said.

“Our missile defense program since 2001 has demonstrated that missile technology, in particular hit-to-kill technology, actually works,” Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said in public comments in October.

He cited previous hit-to-kill testing of the core system, the ground-based mid-course interceptor, which the Pentagon reported resulted in four direct hits on mock warheads in space.

The most recent test of the system on Dec. 11, though, failed because a rocket booster failed to separate, according to the Missile Defense Agency.  The agency’s record for the tests is now five of eight hits.  Lead contractor Boeing reportedly is considering canceling the next two flight-tests, Inside Missile Defense reported in October. 

Matt Martin, a missile defense analyst at the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation in Washington says the agency originally planned more than 20 hit-to-kill tests before testing the system under operational conditions.

“Back when BMDO [the now-defunct Ballistic Missile Defense Organization] used to actually publish detailed listings of what the tests would be, what they were going to test for, what the warhead/decoy set-up was going to be, they listed 21, 22 developmental tests before they got to operational testing,” he said.

Chuck Spinney, a longtime Pentagon analyst with a reputation for criticizing Pentagon weapons acquisition policies, said deploying a system before it is fully developed is a common Pentagon practice.

“This is Pentagon business as usual.  Deployment before verifying a system works through testing is bad engineering practice and the reason we do it in the Pentagon is because we’re spending other people’s money and the deployment will increase production funds flowing to the contractors, which means more contracts will be flowing to congressional districts,” he said.

The practice, he said, creates “a political safety net so the program can’t be turned off,” he said.

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U.S.-Europe:  Pentagon Requests European Bases, Participation

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration has formally asked the United Kingdom and Denmark to join the U.S. missile defense development program and to allow the deployment of advanced early warning radar stations on their territory, according a statement by President George W. Bush released today (see GSN, Dec. 11).

Seeking to begin European participation in a program scheduled to cost tens of billions of dollars, “The United States will structure our missile defense program in a manner that encourages industrial participation by other nations,” the statement said.

The statement also suggested the U.S. system would to provide missile protection in Europe.

“The Defense Department will develop and deploy missile defenses capable of protecting not only the United States and our deployed forces, but also our friends and allies,” the statement said, reaffirming a policy established at the beginning of the Bush administration.

The deployments would involve upgrading existing U.S. capabilities at the bases, which were not identified, but which government officials previously have indicated are the Royal Air Force base at Fylingdales and the Thule air base in northwestern Greenland, a Danish territory.  Upgrades to the British base Menwith Hill also have been under consideration.

Advanced radars at those bases, experts said, would help provide defense against future ballistic missile threats that might emerge from Middle Eastern countries such as Iran and Iraq.  The White House simultaneously announced today plans to deploy missile defense systems in the Pacific, which experts said are intended to defend against a possible North Korean missile threat (see related GSN story, today).

Canadian officials recently have announced they would not participate, at least for the near term, in a joint missile defense project with the United States (see GSN, Dec. 16).

Analysts said Britain is almost certain to approve the request, while a response from Denmark is less certain because of opposition among native groups in Greenland and the election there this month of a pro-independence coalition government believed to be skeptical about participation.  Senior officials of the two countries have said they would first bring such a proposal to a national debate before arriving at a decision.  

“I think the likelihood is fairly high that the British government is going to agree to it,” said Nigel Chamberlain, spokesman for the British American Security Information Council.

Danish approval, he said, “is less clear cut, because while the Danish government has final say over the Greenland government, the Greenland government does have a certain autonomy to speak out.”

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Canadian Plans:  Ottawa Skeptical on Participation in U.S. System

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — In a potentially significant setback for the U.S. missile defense program, Canada’s prime minister and a key parliamentary committee have signaled opposition to joining the system’s development program at present.

“As for the project of the Americans on the so-called Star Wars, we are not participating in that and we have not been asked to participate,” Liberal Party Prime Minister Jean Chretien said Wednesday, responding to oral questions from members of the House of Commons.

“If they make a request we will look into it, but at this moment we are not interested.  The policy is very clear and has been stated in the House by myself and ministers over the years,” he said.

Meanwhile in a report published late last week, the House of Common’s Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade concluded the system might encourage missile proliferation in Asia and is not yet proven technologically.  Such claims counter U.S. Missile Defense Agency assertions that testing over the past two years has demonstrated the system will work.

The report also described concerns that the missile defense program could lead to “weaponization of outer space, in contravention of international agreements.”

“The government should not make a decision about missile defense systems being developed by the United States, as the technology has not been proven and details of deployment are not known,” it recommended, but said the government should continue to monitor U.S. development efforts. 

It cited an article this year written by a former senior U.S. defense official, Eliot Cohen, now a Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies professor, which said the technological capability to do defend against a long-range ballistic missile attack “remains unproven.”

The committee report was the product of a comprehensive review of North American relations initiated after the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States. 

Chretien’s comment appeared to be a step back from remarks made by Canadian Foreign Minister Bill Graham suggesting the Canadian government favored participation (see GSN, Dec. 10).

U.S. missile defense analyst Baker Spring, of the Heritage Foundation, said he viewed Canadian opposition as “very significant.”

“My assessment is that Canadian participation is a top-tier issue among those regarding allied participation and cooperation in missile defense programs,” he said.

The significance, he said, lies in the fact that the U.S. early warning system for detecting intercontinental ballistic missile launches, North American Aerospace  Defense Command (NORAD), is a joint U.S.-Canadian operation.

If Canada opposed using NORAD-derived information for operating the missile defense system, “it would be incredibly damaging,” he said.

A Matter of Debate

Canada’s apparent opposition to joining the effort coincides with a warming debate in various NATO countries over whether to join the U.S. effort, as U.S. officials attempt to sell NATO members on an expanded, interconnected, multifaceted system to protect the United States and Europe against a long-range ballistic missiles.

No NATO government has yet formally joined the U.S. program or committed national resources to it.  The United Kingdom this month, however, indicated support for the effort, without formally committing to it, by publishing a report that rejected a range of arguments critics have voiced against the proposed system (see GSN, Dec. 11).  There were reports in the British press this weekend the United States would make a formal request for using at least one British facility, which experts say would indicate London is now willing to receive such a request favorably (see related GSN story, today).

It is currently U.S. policy that the system is being developed to protect the territories of the United States and its friends and allies.

While some NATO country companies already participate on a small scale in the program, Canada and European governments appear to be pulled in different directions by several factors, including U.S. pressure to formally join, security concerns, nonproliferation concerns, and public and political opposition. 

Canadian Minister of Parliament Svend Robinson asked Chretien Wednesday, “Instead of studying this dangerous, expensive, untried technology, why will the government of Canada not stand up for Canada and say to [U.S. President] George Bush, ‘We will not be part of your new Star Wars scheme?’”

In the 1980s, Canada opposed joining the Strategic Defense Initiative, dubbed “Star Wars,” although Canadian companies did participate.

Potential Canadian support for missile defense in the past was viewed as significant, the House of Commons report said, because it would be difficult for the United States to muster support for the program “if the other North American ally did not agree” and perhaps because Canadian participation would permit the use of NORAD early warning facilities in the system, the report said.

The committee report expressed a concern that Canada’s refusal to join a missile defense system could prompt Washington to terminate the cooperative NORAD program.  That concern appeared unfounded, however, with the two countries signing a joint defense pact last week allowing for the troops of either country to cross borders to aid in response to a terrorist attack.  Military officials are expected to draw up plans at NORAD.

A U.S. official said last week the Pentagon would consider shifting responsibility for national missile defense operations from the U.S. Northern Command, responsible for homeland defense, to NORAD if Ottawa signed on.

“Assuming the Canadians do not participate in this particular endeavor,” said Army Lt. Gen. Edward Anderson, deputy commander of NORTHCOM said last week, ground-based midcourse defense “will be a NORTHCOM mission.”

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U.S. Plans:  Officials Will Request Use of British Base in Missile Defense

The United States will formally ask British officials tomorrow to allow U.S. officials to incorporate the Fylingdales early warning radar station into a missile defense system, the London Sunday Times reported yesterday (see GSN, Dec. 11).

The request could also cover a satellite ground station at Menwith Hill; both locations are in North Yorkshire, in the United Kingdom.  The bases would be tied to a missile interceptor base in Alaska.

U.S. officials are also expected to make a formal request to Denmark to upgrade the Thule radar station in Greenland.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair and British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon have discussed the issue and officials expect Hoon to submit a statement to the House of Commons on the U.S. appeal.  The request will most likely be approved early next year (David Cracknell, London Sunday Times, Dec. 15).

Some political and public debate on the plan is expected, but the United States would probably not make the request if approval were not assured, Defense News reported today.

“There is little doubt politically the special relationship between the U.K. and U.S. indicates that Washington will be knocking at an open door,” said Paul Beaver, an analyst at Ashbourne Beaver Associates in London.

Use of the Fylingdales base was raised 18 months ago, and the two countries are currently engaged in missile defense information-sharing talks.

A Dec. 9 document released by the British Defense Ministry says, “The additional warning time provided by RAF (Royal Air Force) Fylingdales for a Middle Eastern threat is very substantial” (Andrew Chuter, Defense News, Dec. 16).

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