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This weeks Missile Proliferation stories for Friday, July 12, 2002.
Threat Assessment: Cruise Missiles Need More Attention, Reports SayBy Bryan Bender In separate reports, the RAND Corporation and Congressional Research Service renewed concerns that proliferation of cruise missiles — effectively low-flying, slow-moving aircraft lacking a pilot — poses a growing threat to overseas military bases and U.S. population centers but has been given relatively scant attention compared to the ballistic missile threat. The reports’ authors recommended a series of steps to reduce demand for cruise missiles, strengthen international controls over related technologies and develop new military countermeasures to defend against cruise missile attack. “The threat of cruise missiles cuts across all scenarios,” says one of the reports, Future Air and Missile Threats, a RAND study for the U.S. Army. “Unsophisticated cruise missiles could be available to a wide spectrum of potential opponents, including drug lords and terrorists. They could use cruise missiles to hold airports or even densely populated cities at risk.” According to Cruise Missile Proliferation, a report by the research arm of the U.S. Library of Congress, more than 80 countries — including Iran, Iraq and North Korea, which the Bush administration has charged with supporting terrorism and developing weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them — currently possess cruise missiles. While the greatest short-term threat is from anti-ship cruise missiles, the report says that “as relevant technology becomes increasingly available commercially, efforts to control the sophistication of these missiles and their spread may become more difficult.” Cruise missiles may currently threaten U.S. and allied forces deployed overseas, according to CRS, but “the U.S. intelligence community estimates that, by the end of the decade, a cruise missile attack on the United States may be possible.” Ballistic Versus Cruise Missile Threat RAND contended that several features make a cruise missile attack increasingly probable and an attractive alternative to a ballistic missile attack, particularly in unconventional conflicts that involve not military forces but terrorist groups or other transnational actors that lack sophisticated arms. Whereas ballistic missiles pose a threat primarily in conventional military conflicts, cruise missiles could be utilized in virtually any scenario, RAND wrote. “If the world evolves in such a way that a conventional conflict is not likely — the United States remains the sole superpower and democracy spreads worldwide — the threat of tactical ballistic missiles is correspondingly low,” the report says. At the same time, cruise missile technology overlaps significantly with commercial technologies available in the aviation sector. Ballistic missiles, on the other hand, have little commercial value unless they are intercontinental and can be used to launch satellites. “Overlapping military and civilian technology increases pressure to allow technology exports,” CRS wrote. In addition to the 18 nations that manufacture cruise missiles, 22 other countries appear to have industrial capacities to make them, it said. The status of these ‘threshold cruise missile manufacturers’ could have a significant impact on global cruise missile supply, demand, inventory and capabilities, CRS wrote. U.S. defense and intelligence officials believe it is unlikely that a terrorist or other transnational group would use a cruise missile to launch a strike, particularly one using chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. There are other, less detectable means of delivering a weapon of mass destruction — for example, smuggling it into the United States. Officials are not, however, ruling out any possibility. “We can’t just close off one avenue of attack and leave others open,” Paul Wolfowitz, deputy secretary of defense, said in a July 2 interview with National Public Radio. “And we’re doing everything we can to close the door to terrorists. We’re trying now finally after 30 years … to vigorously explore ways of stopping ballistic missiles. And we’ve also got to look at how to stop cruise missiles, which are basically unmanned aircraft.” International Controls Insufficient Cruise missile technologies are widely available and include such common aircraft components as guidance sets, turbojet engines, navigation equipment, flight control systems, avionics and analog and digital computers. Efforts to control these dual-use technologies have fallen short, according to the reports. Complete cruise missile systems are regulated by the Missile Technology Control Regime, which prohibits members from exporting systems that can carry a 500-kilogram warhead to distances of 300 kilometers or more. A 1993 annex to the agreement added a “catch-all” clause intended to prohibit the transfer of particular components when there is persuasive information that they are intended for delivering chemical, biological or nuclear warheads. However, nearly half of the current cruise missile manufacturers — including India, China, Iran, Iraq, North Korea and Israel — are not members of the MTCR. The CRS report says that such a supply-side approach, which requires countries to voluntarily follow export restrictions, has inherent weaknesses. While the MTCR can be strengthened, more emphasis should be placed on reducing demand, according to the congressional researchers. “Creating incentives or disincentives (or perhaps both) for countries to refrain from importing or manufacturing cruise missiles might help reduce demand for these weapons,” CRS wrote. Another international control mechanism, the Wassenaar Arrangement, regulates unmanned aerial vehicles and UAV technologies designed for military purposes. Like the MTCR, however, it has exceptions for technologies intended for manned aircraft systems, which can easily be applied to cruise missile developments. The United States is currently seeking to strengthen the agreement to include more frequent reporting and a “no undercut” provision that would require all signatories to honor the decision of one member state to deny an item to a particular country. “It may also be possible to tighten controls through bilateral agreements, particularly with nations such as Russia and France, which are two of the very few countries capable of making stealthy cruise missiles,” the congressional report says. “Negotiating an agreement prohibiting the export of stealthy cruise missiles with these and other appropriate countries is sometimes seen as a potentially useful step.” Cruise Missile Defenses Developing effective cruise missile defense systems are another necessary step, the reports say. “Cruise missiles present significant challenges for air and missile defenses,” according to CRS. “Detecting a cruise missile attack is difficult because they are small and can be launched from the air, sea or ground.” CRS recommendations include improved coordination between the North American Aerospace Defense Command and the Federal Aviation Administration as well as an expansion of the Customs Service’s radar-bearing balloons, called aerostats, currently used to detect small aircraft attempting to smuggle drugs into the United States. In calling for greater investments in cruise missile defense, RAND identifies several possible approaches. “To ensure effective defenses, the Army needs to develop a system that includes a sensor mounted on an aircraft or on a balloon that can detect low-altitude cruise missiles at long range,” RAND researchers wrote. “Assuming that naval systems could defend seaports, the Army should make its cruise missile defenses deployable so they will be available to protect airports. Finally, to defend the United States or other large territories, effort should be invested in developing long-range interceptors so that cruise missile defenses can protect large areas with a reasonable number of launchers.” For further information, see: U.S. State Department MTCR Summary Wassenaar Arrangement Web site Wassenaar Arrangement Participating States Pentagon Executive Summary of Wassenaar Arrangement
Iran: Shahab 3 Development Complete, Pentagon SaysU.S. defense officials believe that Iran has completed development of the Shabab 3 missile, which could hit several U.S. allies, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. “The Shahab 3 has completed development, and a few missiles are likely deployed, which would allow Iran to reach Israel, most of Saudi Arabia and Turkey,” the Pentagon said (see GSN, May 28). “The U.S. government is now saying that the Shahab 3 is no longer experimental, no longer just a ‘program,’ but it is now a weapon that needs to be factored into U.S. planning,” said Kenneth Katzman, an analyst for the Congressional Research Service. “It reflects a ratcheting up of official concern about Iran’s weapons of mass destruction programs.” Iran deployed some of the missiles “about a month ago,” Representative Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) said, adding that Iran is probably “moving on to the longer-range Shahab 4, which threatens all of Europe” (see GSN, May 8). Joseph Cirincione, an analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, questioned the military’s assessment of Iran’s missile capabilities. The Pentagon’s “evaluation is a little hard to believe,” he said. “It is a stretch to say that they have ‘completed development,’” Cirincione said. “More likely is that Iranian defense officials, anxious to show some progress in the troubled program, have fielded a few missiles while development continues. Whether or how they will perform is unknown, not just to us but probably to the Iranians as well.” Earlier intelligence reports estimated that Iran could deploy some Shahab 3 missiles “on an emergency basis,” Cirincione added. “That more cautious estimate seems closer to reality.” The Pentagon estimates that the Shahab 3 has a range of 1,300 kilometers. Israel estimates the range at closer to 3,000 kilometers, Ephraim Halevy, head of the Israeli Mossad intelligence agency, said last month, according to the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz (see GSN, June 27). The missile’s design is based on North Korean No Dong missiles and uses Chinese and Russian technology, according to unclassified defense reports. Russian technology could help Iran “accelerate the pace of its ballistic missile development program,” one Pentagon report said. Russian assistance to Iran has been a continuing point of contention in the U.S.-Russian relationship (see GSN, June 7). The United States must continue to pressure Russia to crack down on providing WMD technology to Iran, U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told Bloomberg News. “There’s no way we can cooperate with them [Russia] on missile defense if the technology goes out the back door to countries like Iran,” Wolfowitz said (Tony Capaccio, Bloomberg News, July 9). For further information, see: Carnegie Endowment World Missile Chart
International Response: Missile Code of Conduct May Be Ready by 2003By Mike Nartker The June 17-19 meeting followed a February conference in Paris during which delegates approved a draft of the code. More countries attended the meeting in Madrid than the Paris conference, which might indicate growing support, said Alex Wagner, an analyst with the Arms Control Association. “Maybe the Paris meeting created a buzz that would make it more appealing,” he said. North Korea and Syria — two countries with ballistic missile programs that have raised concerns — did not attend the Madrid meeting, according to Wagner. Iran, which has also raised missile proliferation concerns and has previously played an active role in developing the code, also did not attend the meeting, Wagner said. Tehran had previously indicated it would attend the meeting until about a week before it was scheduled to begin, he added. At the Paris conference, more than 80 countries had agreed to a draft code, a political agreement that calls on signatories to declare their ballistic missile programs once a year and to alert other signatories before conducting any missile tests. At the end of the conference, France agreed to revise the text of the code based on suggestions made during the meeting and transmit the revised text to Spain, who was to take over the EU presidency, Wagner said. The European Union, now headed by Denmark, will be responsible for deciding what will be done next on the code of conduct, said Vann Van Diepen, acting deputy assistant U.S. secretary of state for nonproliferation. The EU’s options on the code are “open-ended,” he added. There is general consensus among the countries involved in the discussions that the code will be unveiled during a ceremony at The Hague before the end of the year, Wagner said.
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