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September 21, 2009
Exclusive: Scrapped Missile Defense System Presents Critical Security Dilemmas
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced Thursday that a deployment of ground based interceptors in Poland, based on the design of currently deployed missiles now in California and Alaska, would be scrapped along with a radar system that was to be deployed in the Czech Republic. The two-stage interceptor planned for Poland had yet to be fully developed. Original plans had the deployment occurring some time between 2013-15.
It was based on the missile defense systems we have now deployed in the western U.S. That system “works” according to testimony before Congress by the US Secretary of Defense, and can protect the United States from long range intercontinental ballistic missiles, especially those that might be launched from North Korea. Pyongyang has launched a number of 3-stage long-range rockets. The last launch saw the third-stage fire but not deploy properly. According to former senior government missile defense experts, if the third-stage North Korean rocket had worked, it would have been able to land a 250 kilo warhead on Miami and a 500 kilo warhead on Indiana. In 1998, the U.S. intelligence community determined that North Korea had the technical ability to land a warhead on the western portion of the United States but had yet to technically and successfully test flight a missile of that capability. Thus it is not a stretch to fear that such technology may soon be successfully demonstrated, making the current deployment of 30 interceptors in Alaska and California a very prudent and farsighted deployment.
But then how are we to protect Europe and the United States from ballistic missiles from Iran? A critical issue is what range of rockets you believe Iran currently has and is developing. Two recent Iranian missile tests shed light on this issue. Most estimates have placed the range of the November 2008 and May 2009 missile tests as between 2000-2500 kilometers. That would put a large part of Eastern Europe at risk, as well as the entire Arabian Peninsula, Turkey and other U.S. allies.
In a study that is to be released soon, it has been determined that not only has Iran developed the capability to launch rockets with a range of at least 2,500 kilometers, but that its current technology put the range of such rockets closer to 3,000 kilometers, which would put a large portion of central Europe at risk of such missile threats. The report will further note that Iran has now the technology to build solid-fueled rockets and rockets with more the one-stage, demonstrated in two missile flight tests in the past 10 months.
And according to a news column on September 17, 2009 by Washington Times defense reporter Bill Gertz, Iranian government documents have been found that show a coalition of state-owned companies in North Korea, China and Russia, as well as government entities, have all been assisting Iran in the building of ballistic missiles. They have been helping Tehran with technology and scientific capability while representatives from each of these governments have been part of Iranian ballistic missile development from the very beginning.
What the Department of Defense is pushing as an alternative to the planned deployment in Poland and the Czech Republic is an initial deployment of Navy Aegis cruisers which carry missile defense interceptors called the Standard Missile. This missile currently has a speed roughly of 3.2 kilometers per second, which enables it to intercept short and medium range rockets with ranges upwards of 2,000 kilometers. The intercept of Iranian rockets aimed at Turkey or Israel or Romania, for example would be possible with the deployment of Navy ships in the Mediterranean, the Baltic or Black Seas but with a deployment of some 3-5 ships.
However, to deploy this number of Navy ships on a 24/7 basis would require dedicating some number of ships approaching one dozen or more. This is an important consideration in that the capability to deploy a solid-rocket fueled missile enables Iran to have the rocket capable of being launched relatively quickly and have their missiles on alert most of the time. A liquid-fueled rocket needs to be fueled over a period of days, and the activity can be seen using space-based satellites as we have often been able to monitor North Korean fueling activities.
Now, the issue is whether the Navy ships will steam to the European theater as a crisis develops or will they be deployed 24/7? To do the latter would require the dedication of a relatively large number of ships just to do that mission as noted earlier. That is not to say we will not undertake such a deployment but we do not yet have sufficient Navy ships currently outfitted with the Standard Missile to perhaps dedicate to an ongoing 24/7 European theater deployment. Eventually we may have as many as roughly 80 Navy Aegis ships outfitted with Standard Missile defense capabilities. But to deploy 3-5 ships on a 24/7 basis would be tens of billions more in cost than the now scrapped Polish and Czech deployments, although one could argue that the Navy ships will be built in any case.
Now it is also true the Missile Defense Agency has had under development a Standard Missile option that would be ground based, placed on US military bases, perhaps in Germany or Turkey, or even in Poland or the Czech Republic as suggested by the Secretary of Defense, but at a latter date. The plan would be to develop a new missile variant by 2015 with an intercept speed of 4.5 kilometers per second which would give us a deployed defense to compliment a mobile Aegis cruiser system based at sea. However, if we had continued the original Polish-based ground-based silo interceptors as planned, we could have had that deployment available perhaps as early as 2013, and the deployed system would have been able to protect not only Warsaw but London and Paris and, importantly, the United States.
The current Aegis-based missile defenses can defend some portions of Europe from Iranian short and medium range missiles but cannot defend against either longer range missiles or ICBMs, intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the United States. Other missile defenses, such as the Theater High Altitude and Patriot/PAC-3 missile defenses can defend the Persian Gulf and small areas of Europe but their footprint or area defended would require very large number of defense batteries to be deployed which could be prohibitively expensive in many instances. Thus the Navy missile defense covers far more area with a relatively small number of ships. Reaching 4-5-6.5 kilometers per second, for example, for the Navy interceptor would allow all of Europe to be defended with just the deployment of 1-3 ships, according to Israel experts such as Uzi Rubin, the former director of ballistic missile work for Tel Aviv.
The central issue then comes down to two separate timelines, one over which we have control and the other over which we do not. Conventional intelligence assumptions generally assumed that rogue state ballistic missile programs would be developed primarily from indigenous capabilities. The 1998 Commission on Ballistic Missile Threats to the United States identified international cooperation – often secretive and not very visible – as enabled nations such as Iran and North Korea to develop offensive ballistic missile capabilities capable of reaching intercontinental ranges—and thus threaten the United States – in as little as five years. The key to the Commission findings was the element of surprise – we would not necessarily see the developments which probably would only become visible once a nation such as Iran or North Korea launched a newly developed rocket.
Thus the development of Iranian rockets and North Korean missiles is not something we have much control over. Although the United States might get serious about denying to Tehran and Pyongyang access to international financial markets and missile technology, we have not done so except in some limited instances. And as the excellent article by Bill Gertz (mentioned above) makes clear, the cartel of states helping Iran develop rockets and nuclear weapons – North Korea, Russia and China – are not exactly transparent.
The timeline over which we have better control is the deployment of missile defenses to defend not only the US but our allies in Europe. The US defense secretary has noted that Poland could in fact host the deployment of missile interceptors some time in the future. This calls into question the basis for previous Russian objections to such a deployment should we assume Russia does not now object to such an eventual deployment, although the timeline may be as far out as 2020 when such a system is deployed according to the administration.
We are thus betting that any protection from longer range Iranian rockets does not have to be deployed anytime soon, and that currently finished systems such as the Navy Aegis capability will be sufficient to deal with the current short and medium range Iranian rocket threats. Turkey has announced they will purchase some $7.8 billion worth of Patriot missile defense systems which will further protect the Middle East from Iranian threats.
The Aegis and Patriot systems now being deployed would have been available even should we have gone forward with the deployments in Poland and the Czech Republic. The idea that deploying such systems in the European theater is some breakthrough is a big stretch. We always had such a capability and NATO plans have called for such deployments as well. The key issue has been the extent to which our allies would actually purchase such systems – like Turkey – and deploy them in their own country or have them ready to accompany troop deployments elsewhere or whether the U.S. would be required to deploy such systems in a crisis or as part of a regular rotation of U.S. military forces.
For Poland and the Czech Republic to have joined the US in defending NATO and the United States from ballistic missile threats would have been a signal of their full integration with the West. It would have also driven a final nail into the coffin of Russian hegemonic threats over Eastern Europe, as eloquently noted by Vaclav Havel when the former Czechoslovakia President celebrated his country’s joining NATO. This is not to pick a fight with Moscow but it is a candid recognition of the coercive and bullying nature of current Russian foreign, defense and energy policy.
The evidence is growing that longer range threats may indeed be more imminent than many believe. This is not to discount Iranian deployments of very large numbers of short and medium range rockets. We have the missile defense technology to defend ourselves. Accelerated purchases of Navy and Army missile defense assets were already planned in the previous administration and current plans to do so are welcome.
But we know that North Korea, Russia and China are helping Iran not only with ballistic missile technology but also the technology of nuclear weapons. Putting a nuclear weapon on a short or medium range missile would require an ability to deploy a relatively small warhead. But even warheads of relatively low yield could cause an Electromagnetic Pulse attack over the United States, and could be launched from an off-shore freighter within a few hundred miles off the US coastline. That is a defense we need to seriously undertake, along with efforts to harden our critical infrastructure against such attacks.
We should be deploying a defense against long-range Iranian rockets not hoping that the necessity to do so can be delayed for many years, perhaps even a decade. Intelligence reports are that Iran is between 1-3 years away from being able to build a nuclear weapon, and if during that time they acquire the capability to launch rockets of longer range than currently assumed, not only Europe but the United States itself will come under the shadow of a nuclear armed Iran, run by radical Mullahs, who believe that Armageddon is something that should be welcomed.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Peter Huessy is President of GeoStrategic Analysis, a defense consulting company in Potomac, Maryland.
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