U.S. Plans:  Navy Could Negate North Korean Missile Threat in One Year, Official Says

By Greg Seigle
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — U.S. Navy ships could negate any ICBM threats from North Korea in only one year if the Bush administration gives permission to start boost-phase intercept tests, a senior Defense Department official told Global Security Newswire yesterday.

After a year of testing, Japan-based Aegis cruisers carrying the Block IV versions of the Standard Missile 2 (SM-2) should be able to intercept ICBMs launched from North Korea, said the official, who has spent several years involved in Pentagon missile defense efforts.

The cruisers would have to be positioned about 50 kilometers off the North Korean coast to properly orient the interceptor to hit a Taepo Dong missile in its boost phase, he said.

“This is a dirt-simple target.  It’s as big as two greyhound buses,” the official said.

“When you’re in the atmosphere and using a blast fragmentation warhead, you only have to get [the interceptor] within a few hundred feet because all you have to do is put shrapnel through that motor,” he said.

“I think this would be a deterrent to North Korea” and its continuing development of ICBMs, he said, adding that Pyongyang would be discouraged if the United States “put a ship off there and we demonstrated that we could shoot one down.”

No U.S. missile defense system has proven the ability to score a boost-phase intercept of an ICBM, but the official said the Aegis cruisers using the existing SM-2 could do the job if the Navy were given the go-ahead by President George W. Bush to start testing this summer.

Bush has pledged to void the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Moscow June 13, giving him the freedom to order sea-based ICBM intercept tests.  Currently the administration is focused on conducting midcourse intercepts from land-based systems and does not plan to start boost-phase intercepts this year (see GSN, March 18).

Low Cost, Fast Alternative

The senior Defense official said that it would only cost the Navy $200 million to be ready to nullify any ICBM threats from North Korea, which test-launched a three-stage Taepo Dong in 1998 over Japan and into the Pacific Ocean.

Since then North Korea has received political pressure — and financial aid — from the United States not to conduct any more flight tests of the Taepo Dong, two variants of which are apparently under development.

The official told GSN that North Korea probably only has a handful of ICBMs at most and that the United States should use sea-based platforms to end any threat from these missiles quickly and cheaply.

“This is not Russia, this is North Korea,” he said.  “How much money do we want to spend to deter North Korea?  Let’s say I’m off … Let’s say it’s $2 billion … that seems reasonable to me, from a budgetary degree of commitment.”

Using the Aegis cruisers as missile defense against North Korea would simply be the first step of many taken to build and refine various missile defense systems, including land-based ones, he said.

“This is not designed to be a global missile system.  This is a first step against a known threat.”

Tests Would Have to Begin This Summer

For the Aegis cruisers to be ready within a year, the Navy must begin boost-phase testing this summer, the official said.

The Aegis cruisers would be testing what is called the Extended Air Defense system because it would use the existing SM-2s, and only one or two intercepts will suffice to prove it works, the official said.

“If it works it should be catastrophic … [and] obliterate the missile,” he said. “Why haven’t we done this?  It’s really just policy.  There are no technical issues here.”

In the atmosphere — below 120,000 feet — an SM-2 only needs to get within 200 to 500 feet from an ICBM target to destroy it with a blast fragmentation warhead, the official said.  Blast fragmentation intercepts are easier to conduct than direct, ‘hit to kill’ intercepts that would be needed for the type of exoatmospheric, midcourse intercepts the Bush administration is aiming to master first, he said (see GSN, March 26). 

In any tests the Navy would want to “do it right up close and try to simulate [a real-life] situation,” he said.  “Now no one’s told us to go down or to give us a target or put any money to go do that … if you want to deploy this capability, we need those 12 months” of testing.

The SM-2 will not be adequate to conduct boost-phase intercepts of theater-range missiles such as the North Korean Nodong, the official said.

“You can’t really get a boost-phase intercept with theater-wide missile because the burn of the motor is too short before we get to it, unless it’s perfect geometry,” he said.

International Cooperation Needed

Japan had plans to participate in the development of the Block IVA version of the SM-2, a project that was killed along with the Navy Area Wide anti-missile system last fall, a budget cut the official called a “big time” mistake (see GSN, March 28).

The Block IVA interceptor missile was intended for sea-based midcourse or terminal-phase intercepts, a need that will ultimately have to be met to provide the United States and its allies the best missile protection, the official said. 

Boost-phase intercepts will only be a stopgap measure until more mature midcourse intercept systems would be ready, he said.  The boost-phase intercepts will only work against countries Aegis cruisers could get close to, he added.  They could work against missiles fired from Iraq and Iran, but only if cruisers in the Mediterranean Sea could get underneath their trajectory, he said.

Still, he said, several countries have been building Aegis cruisers with the type of vertical-launch capabilities needed for midcourse intercepts of ICBMs and theater-range missiles.

In addition to interest in sea-based missile defense systems from Japan, several European countries — including Germany, Netherlands, Spain and Norway — are building Aegis cruisers with vertical launch capabilities independent of U.S. efforts, he said.

“Where’s our joint effort here?” the official asked.  “We ought to do it in concert with Japan and bring that international connection to fruition.  We don’t need to do this by ourselves.  We need to foster this international cooperation” and reduce costs.

Back to top

U.S.-Russia:  ABM Treaty Prevents Cooperation, Bolton Says

The expected U.S. withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in June (see GSN, Dec. 13, 2001) will free up the United States to cooperate with Russia on jointly developing missile defense programs, according to U.S. Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton (see GSN, March 7).

Speaking to journalists in Washington on Friday, Bolton said the United States and Russia share vulnerability to missile attacks from rogue states.  He said he expects to “work together with Russia … against those common threats.”

In the near term, cooperation can only consist of data exchanges and U.S. transparency about its missile defense plans, Bolton said, because the ABM Treaty “precludes the sharing of technology and research and development on missile defense from one country to another.”

Bolton said he expects that after the U.S. treaty withdrawal takes effect, “we can have more serious conversations with the Russian side about these possible joint research and development programs” (Federal News Service transcript, March 29).

Back to top

About Newswire  |  Contact National Journal  |  Re-Use Guidelines

HOME  |  CONTACT US  |  GET INVOLVED  |  SITE MAP