Rude Awakening for Missile-Defense

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: George Sadowsky <george.sadowsky () attglobal net>
Date: Wed, 05 Jan 2005 00:32:16 -0500
To: <dave () farber net>
Subject: Rude Awakening for Missile-Defense (fwd)

Dave - for IP if you like.

George Sadowsky

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Published on Tuesday, January 4, 2005 by the
Christian Science Monitor
Rude Awakening to Missile-Defense Dream
by Scott Ritter

DELMAR, N.Y. – On Christmas Eve 2004, the Russian
Strategic Missile Force test fired an advanced
SS-27 Topol-M road-mobile intercontinental ballistic
Missile (ICBM). This test probably invalidated the
entire premise and technology used in the National
Missile Defense (NMD) system currently being
developed and deployed by the Bush administration,
and at the same time called into question the
validity of the administration's entire approach
to arms control and disarmament.

> From 1988 to 1990, I served as one of the American
weapons inspectors at the Votkinsk Machine
Building Plant in Russia, where the SS-27 and its
predecessor, the SS-25, were assembled. When I
started my work in Votkinsk, the SS-25 missile was
viewed by many in the US intelligence community as
the primary ICBM threat facing the United States.
A great deal of effort was placed on learning as
much as possible about this missile and its
capabilities.

Through the work of the inspectors at Votkinsk, as
well as several related inspections where US
experts were able to view the SS-25 missile system
in its operating bases in Siberia, a great deal of
data was collected that assisted the US
intelligence community in refining its
understanding of how the SS-25 operated. This
understanding was translated into several
countermissile strategies, including aerial
interdiction operations and missile-defense
concepts.

The abysmal performance of American counter-SCUD
operations during the Gulf War in 1991 highlighted
the deficiencies of the US military regarding the
aerial interdiction of road-mobile missiles. Iraqi
Al-Hussein mobile missiles were virtually
impossible to detect and interdict, even with
total American air supremacy. Despite all the
effort put into counter-SCUD operations during
that war, not a single Iraqi mobile missile
launcher was destroyed by hostile fire, a fact I
can certify not only as a participant in the
counter-SCUD effort, but also as a chief inspector
in Iraq, where I led the United Nations
investigations into the Iraqi missile program.

The rapid collapse of the Soviet Union did not
leave much time for reflection on the American
counter-mobile missile launcher deficiencies. In
mid-1993, the Department of Defense conducted a
comprehensive review to select the strategy and
force structure for the post-cold war era. With
the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the threat to
the US from a deliberate or accidental ballistic
missile attack by former Soviet states or by China
was judged highly unlikely. In Votkinsk, US
inspectors observed a Soviet-era defense industry
in decline. SS-25 missiles were produced at a
greatly reduced rate, and the next generation
missile, a joint Russian-Ukrainian design, was
scrapped after a few prototypes were produced, but
never launched.

After the resounding Republican victory in the
midterm 1994 congressional elections, a new
program for missile defense was proposed covering
three distinct "threat" capabilities ranging from
"unsophisticated threats" (an attack of five
single-warhead missiles with simple decoys), to
highly sophisticated threats (an attack of 20
single-warhead SS-25 type missiles, each with
decoys or other defensive countermeasures).
Funding for this program ran to some $10.8 billion
from 1993 to 2000.

When President Bush came to power in 2001, there
was a dramatic change in posture regarding
ballistic missile defense. The administration
announced it was withdrawing from the Anti-
Ballistic Missile Treaty, clearing away
development and operational constraints. At the
same time, the administration laid out a
comprehensive plan that envisioned a layered
missile-defense system. After studying the SS-25
missile for years, the US military believed it
finally had a solution in the form of a multi=
tiered antiballistic missile system that
focused on boost-phase intercept (firing
antimissile missiles that would home in on an ICBM
shortly after launch), space-based laser systems
designed to knock out a missile in flight, and
terminal missile intercept systems, which would
destroy a missile as it reentered the earth's
atmosphere.

The NMD system being fielded to counter the SS-25,
and any similar or less sophisticated threats that
may emerge from China, Iran, North Korea, and
elsewhere, will probably have cumulative costs
between $800 billion and $1.2 trillion by the time
it reaches completion in 2015.

However, the Bush administration's dream of a
viable NMD has been rendered fantasy by the
Russian test of the SS-27 Topol-M. According to
the Russians, the Topol-M has high-speed solid-
fuel boosters that rapidly lift the missile into
the atmosphere, making boost-phase interception
impossible unless one is located practically next
door to the launcher. The SS-27 has been hardened
against laser weapons and has a highly
maneuverable post-boost vehicle that can defeat
any intercept capability as it dispenses up to
three warheads and four sophisticated decoys.

To counter the SS-27 threat, the US will need to
start from scratch. And even if a viable defense
could be mustered, by that time the Russians may
have fielded an even more sophisticated missile,
remaining one step ahead of any US
countermeasures. The US cannot afford to spend
billions of dollars on a missile-defense system
that will never achieve the level of defense
envisioned. The Bush administration's embrace of
technology, and rejection of diplomacy, when it
comes to arms control has failed.

If America continues down the current path of
trying to field a viable missile-defense system,
significant cuts will need to be made in other
areas of the defense budget, or funds reallocated
from other nonmilitary spending programs. With
America already engaged in a costly war in Iraq,
and with the possibility of additional conflict
with Iran, Syria, or North Korea looming on the
horizon, funding a missile-defense system that not
only does not work as designed, but even if it
did, would not be capable of defending America
from threats such as the Topol-M missile, makes no
sense.

The Bush administration would do well to
reconsider its commitment to a national missile-
defense system, and instead reengage in the kind
of treaty-based diplomacy that in the past
produced arms control results that were both real
and lasting. This would not only save billions, it
would make America, and the world, a safer place.

• Scott Ritter is a former intelligence officer
and weapons inspector in the Soviet Union (1988-
1990) and Iraq (1991-1998). He is author of
'Frontier JusticeWeapons of Mass Destruction and
the Bushwhacking of America.'

© Copyright 2005 Christian Science Monitor

###

------ End of Forwarded Message


-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as interesting-people () lists elistx com
To manage your subscription, go to
  http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip

Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/