U.S. Plans:  Kadish Unsure When Systems Will Beat Countermeasures

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon does not know whether its most prominent national missile defense program will be able to defeat enemy countermeasures, and it may not know even when it deploys an initial “emergency” system in Alaska by 2004, a senior Pentagon official testified before Congress yesterday.

“We certainly have not answered the question [of] how effective is this midcourse system … against the variety of decoys that it might go up against,” Missile Defense Agency Director Ronald Kadish said at a hearing of a House Government Reform subcommittee.

“That, however, doesn’t mean that the system is ineffective,” he added.

Critics led by physicist Theodore Postol of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have argued that pursuing the estimated $60 billion Ground-based, Midcourse Defense program is a waste of money (see GSN, May 17).  They assert that an enemy using technologically simple decoys or other countermeasures could easily defeat the system, which is being developed to destroy enemy warheads in space using ground-launched “kill vehicles.”

“Only time will tell in our tests just how effective we will be against countermeasures,” Kadish said (see GSN, July 3).

Asked when the program might have a system that is able to identify a decoy from a warhead well enough to warrant moving into production, he said, “If I had to guess, it would be somewhere in the 2004 to 2008 timeframe.”

Solution:  Many Backups

Kadish said the agency intends to apply various “techniques” to help make the ground-based midcourse and other missile defense systems more resistant to countermeasures.  He suggested, however, that the military’s main answer to the challenge would be to develop many layers of defense to catch an enemy warhead in the event that a single layer fails.

“Our basic approach to countermeasures is the layered defense system that we’re trying to build,” he said.  “Now certainly, within each of those phases, we want to get as good as we can.  And there are techniques that we will use to make each one of those phases more countermeasure resistant, but the idea that we put forth to handle this problem is that we want a layered defense system that takes multiple shots at our adversary in each of the phases that the missile has to pass through.”

“That sounds like a very, very expensive system,” said Representative Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.), one of several subcommittee members to question whether the agency has been making the tests too easy to provide examples of success while simultaneously reducing congressional oversight (see GSN, June 26).

Republican members said aggressive, expensive pursuit of various missile defense programs is necessary given the likelihood of a threat from countries such as North Korea.

“Defending against ballistic missiles will never be easy nor inexpensive, but such difficulties and expense should not be any excuse for inaction,” said Representative Benjamin Gilman (R-N.Y.).

Successes Cited, Questioned

As in previous testimony, Kadish cited several recent flight tests of various missile defense systems where targets were destroyed as evidence that the program is making progress (see GSN, March 18).

The ground-based midcourse system has intercepted its target in each of three attempts over the past year, and in four out of six attempts overall.  The tests have demonstrated the system’s ability to destroy a dummy warhead in space, 240 kilometers in altitude, with a closing speed of 15,000 miles per hour.  Several subcommittee members, however, questioned the realism of those tests.

Under questioning from Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), Kadish acknowledged that during midcourse system testing, the warhead interceptor had prior data concerning the speed, trajectory, target launch time and location of the target and information on the decoy used.  The target also contained a transponder for pinpointing its location in flight, but that information was not fed to the interceptor in at least one situation, he said.

“These are early developmental tests, Congressman.  We have a very stylized approach.  They are very complex,” Kadish said.

Kucinich said the tests were misleading about the level of success in the program so far, but Kadish said tests were intended to test hit-to-kill technology and not techniques for defeating countermeasures.

After 2004

Also at the hearing, Kadish said that officials plan to use the missile defense site at Ft. Greely, Alaska for testing missile defense capabilities.

“The way that we look at it is that the primary focus of the test bed is to do testing,” he said.

Following the U.S. withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty last month, the Missile Defense Agency broke ground for constructing test missile silos at Ft. Greely, Alaska, which Pentagon officials have said could be used in an emergency by 2004, achieving the administration’s goal of deploying an initial missile defense capability by then (see GSN, June 17).

Critics have suggested the missiles are not for testing, but rather an initial deployment of the system.  Philip Coyle, the former Pentagon director of operational tests and evaluation under the Clinton administration, has said the Pentagon does not plan to test-launch those missiles, and Kadish himself said in March that testing cannot take place because the Pentagon lacks paperwork required by environmental regulations (see GSN, June 11).

Representative John Tierney (D-Mass.) charged yesterday that the agency is rushing to field an unproven system.

“That’s why the administration pulled out of the ABM Treaty prematurely, and that’s why the administration is lurching headlong towards building missile interceptor silos in Alaska that have not been proven, cannot be fired in tests and will provide absolutely no protection by 2004, notwithstanding the administration’s numerous promises.”

Representative Janice Shakowsky (D-Ill.) called the overall missile defense effort a “fantasy-based device.”

Kadish said two more phases of testing would follow the current phase, though a decision to move to them is still pending.  Officials would show that the hit-to-kill system could perform reliably and could defeat countermeasures, he said.  Testing will probably involve unannounced target speed, launch time and countermeasure deployments “subsequent to 2004,” Kadish said.

Officials might run tests by 2004 involving a radar jammer, a decoy mimicking a warhead or a tumbling reentry vehicle, he said, without specifying which.

Kadish speculated that testing would approximate a realistic threat in less than five years.

“We will, at some point in this process, make a determination that we should go to more operationally realistic testing,” he said.  “I suggest that that will probably, for the ground-based system, be somewhere in the neighborhood of 2004, ’05, ’06 time frame.”

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U.S. Plans:  Airborne Laser Too Heavy, GAO Draft Report Says

A U.S. General Accounting Office draft report says the airborne laser system — intended to be a major component of U.S. missile defenses — needs to be redesigned because it exceeds weight requirements, Bloomberg.com reported yesterday (see GSN, July 15).

Air Force engineers have determined that a laser model scheduled to be tested in 2004 — which would have only half the power of the full system — would weigh 180,000 pounds, the GAO report says.  The laser is supposed to weigh less than 175,000 pounds, according to Bloomberg.com.

Many advocates of the U.S. missile defense program have said the airborne laser has the best chance of being the first system to be deployed.  Defense analysts, however, have said the laser will not be ready until at least 2008, according to Bloomberg.com (see GSN, May 6).

The Air Force “underestimated the complexity of the engineering task at hand and misjudged the amount of time and money that the program would need,” the report says (Tony Capaccio, Bloomberg.com, July 15).

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U.S. Plans I:  Airborne Laser Success Could Lead to Future Weapons

A successful test of the Airborne Laser program — which is designed to be a component of a U.S. missile defense system — would probably increase program support and might lead to development of other laser systems, the head of the program said Thursday (see GSN, July 1).

The U.S. Defense Department is examining options for future laser use, including other platforms to carry laser weapons, Air Force Col. Ellen Pawlikowski said before a directed energy weapons conference in Washington.  Future laser-equipped systems might use less powerful lasers and have different capabilities, she said.

A full test using the airborne laser to destroy a target will probably not occur until at least the end of 2004, according to Defense Daily.  Within the next few weeks, however, the modified Boeing 747 designed to carry the laser may begin flight tests.  Officials plan to focus the first tests only on the aircraft’s performance, with future tests scheduled to evaluate the aircraft’s battle management system and target detection and tracking ability, Defense Daily reported.

If upcoming tests are successful they might lead to the most important deployment of laser weapons in history, said Robert Cooper, former director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

“If the ABL is successful, it will be the first deployed large-scale laser weaponry in the field,” he said.  An unsuccessful demonstration could lead to setbacks in developing laser weapons, he added (Kerry Gildea, Defense Daily, July 12).

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U.S. Plans II:  Further PAC 3 Flight Tests on Hold

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency does not plan to conduct further operational flight tests of the Patriot Advanced Capability 3 (PAC 3) missile for at least another year, an agency spokeswoman said last week (see GSN, July 1).

The MDA is “still looking at the issues and problems that came up doing the OT [operational testing] phase,” and “if more operational tests are done it won’t be until August or September 2003,” said MDA spokeswoman Alicia Garges.

MDA Director Air Force Lt.-Gen. Ronald Kadish has said that he is “disappointed” with the performance of the PAC 3 during testing and that he has developed a plant to correct problems that have arisen.

“One of the most nagging things that bothered me in OT was the fact that we couldn’t get off the rail, or launcher, a couple of times ... we’ll get a program together to solve those issues,” Kadish said last month, adding that he still plans to deploy the PAC 3 even if the missile is not perfect (Kerry Gildea, Defense Daily, July 11).

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