News Review Special Edition

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International Developments, April 1 - May 10, 2003

Fast-Track US Missile Defence Plans Defended

Testifying in Congress on April 9, Lieutenant General Ronald Kadish, Director of the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency (MDA), stoutly defended US plans to press ahead with the deployment of an initial set of 'test bed' missile defence capabilities in 2004/2005. As chronicled in recent issues, the proposed scheme, although widely championed in the Republican-controlled Congress, has also been characterised by many Democrats and numerous independent experts as strategically premature, technically unproven, and lacking adequate procedures for both Departmental and Congressional oversight and review. Addressing the Senate Appropriations Committee's Subcommittee on Defense, Kadish insisted: "America's missile defense program is on track. The Missile Defense Agency is doing what we told Congress it would do. We listened to your concerns and have sought to address them in a responsible manner. We have faced significant technical and management challenges, but through aggressive testing we have proven that hit-to-kill [missile interceptor] technology works. We have demonstrated system integration through complex system testing. These tests, combined with analysis of simulations and exercises, give us confidence that the system can take the first steps toward initial defensive operations while performing as a test bed for further realistic testing and continued spiral development."

Kadish then outlined his Agency's "evolutionary approach to missile defense": "The BMD [ballistic missile defense] system involves many sensors and interceptors that are integrated and layered to enable engagements against hostile missiles in the boost, midcourse, and terminal phases of flight. ... As I have explained in past hearings, we are building the missile defense system using an evolutionary acquisition approach, so that the system's capability can be enhanced over time. ... Last December the President directed the Department to field an initial set of missile defense capabilities in order to reduce the vulnerabilities of the United States, our troops, and our allies and friends. Given our fielding approach, and given the successful testing we have accomplished to date, I believe we are ready for this. ... We plan to begin operating modest land- and sea-defense capabilities in 2004 to provide limited protection of our country as well as our troops and critical assets overseas."

Of the different 'layers' mentioned by Kadish, the interception of missiles in mid-flight - the 'midcourse' phase - will provide the focus of the initial, controversial 'test bed' deployments of 2004-2005. In the Director's summary: "Midcourse defense elements engage ballistic missiles in space after booster burnout and before the warhead re-enters the atmosphere. The GMD [ground-based midcourse missile defence] element defends against long-range ballistic missile attacks, and Aegis BMD will counter from the sea medium- and short-range ballistic missiles. The Department's plans are to add by the end of FY 2004 one more Ground-Based Interceptor (GBI) at Fort Greely in Alaska for a total of six GBIs at that site, and four interceptors at Vandenberg, Air Force Base [in California], for a total of up to 10 interceptors at both sites. ... There are a number of other activities we need to undertake in FY 2005. We are asking for appropriations to produce up to 10 additional GBIs for fielding at the Fort Greely site, for a total of 16 interceptors in Alaska and four in California. We also plan to produce by the end of 2005 between 10 and 20 SM-3 missiles for deployment on three Aegis ships converted to the missile defense mission. Because we are starting from a base of zero, each interceptor we field between now and 2005, up to the full complement of 20 ground-based and 20 sea-based interceptors, will increase significantly our overall capability to defend this country, our troops, and friendly countries against long- and medium-range threats. Included in the Test Bed and as part of the initial missile defense architecture are plans for integrating Early Warning Radars (EWR) at Eareckson AS (the Cobra Dane radar at Shemya, Alaska) and Beale AFB (Upgraded EWR). ... As you know, the Administration is working to secure allied approval to upgrade and integrate into the BMD system early warning radars currently located in the United Kingdom and Thule, Greenland to view threat missiles launched out of the Middle East. The United Kingdom already has approved the use of the Fylingdales radar. We also plan to build by September 30, 2005 a Sea-Based X-Band Radar (SBX) to improve the testing regime and enhance initial missile defense system performance. ... By the end of 2005, we will upgrade SPY-1 radars on 15 Aegis warships for enhanced surveillance and track capability. Three prototype surveillance and track Aegis destroyers will be available starting in 2003; we will modernize additional destroyers for surveillance and track and BMD engagement capability. Two Aegis cruisers in addition to the USS Lake Erie, our test cruiser, will receive BMD engagement modifications."

Concerns are frequently raised in Congress and the media that the Pentagon's programme for testing and evaluating key missile defence - and particularly missile-intercept - systems and technologies is insufficiently rigorous or realistic, and in effect 'loaded' to give positive results or a false impression of progress. Defense Department officials equally frequently note that many critics of the testing programme also opposed US withdrawal from the US-Russia Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, a process completed last June, despite the straightjacket imposed by the Treaty on missile defence research and development. As Kadish observed: ""We are still evaluating the impact of our withdrawal from the ABM Treaty. The treaty successfully did what it was intended to do. It severely restricted missile defense development and fielding options. The President's action has made it possible to begin to develop and test aggressively the full range of missile defense technologies and pursue capabilities that make the most sense from the standpoints of technology, operations, and cost."

Cutting to the heart of the testing controversy, Kadish stated: "Our intercept tests against long-range ballistic missiles are very complex, yet since October 1999 we were forced to restrict ourselves to the same intercept flight geometries because of artificial constraints in our current Test Bed and our obligation to remain compliant with the ABM Treaty. Today, in order to test our GMD interceptors, we must launch targets from Vandenberg, AFB in California and interceptors from Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. We are changing that. The Test Bed we are building will introduce flexibility into our test approach and help overcome some basic geographic and geometric limitations by allowing us to test weapons and sensors against ballistic missiles of all ranges along different azimuths and using different trajectories. For test purposes we will introduce variable target launch and impact points and engagement areas. Robust, realistic testing is absolutely critical to developing an effective missile defense system. Over the past two years we conducted a total of 55 flight tests and 60 ground tests. Seventeen of these tests were flight-intercept tests. Each test builds our confidence in the BMD system. From our flight-testing, we know that the hit-to-kill approach works. We know our sensors can successfully detect and track the target and that our software algorithms can discriminate between re-entry vehicles and basic decoys and debris. We know our battle management system can generate orders that put a kill vehicle in a position to achieve intercept. We will continue to refine and improve the system's performance in all areas. Our test program continues to add to our confidence that the basic technologies are sound and that they will work together to provide the nation an effective BMD system. Our program and budget will continue to maintain a high tempo of increasingly complex ground- and flight-testing. Over the next two years we are planning another 68 flight tests, 58 ground tests, and maintaining the same pace of intercept tests as before. ... We remain committed to our aggressive testing approach, where we mature midcourse, boost, and terminal missile defense components and elements through rigorous testing under increasingly realistic and challenging conditions."

The last missile-intercept test took place on December 11, 2002. The test failed when the interceptor warhead - the exoatmospheric kill vehicle (EKV) - failed to separate from its booster rocket. According to reports, nine of eleven similar tests - originally scheduled to take place before the first deployments of the interceptors in autumn 2004 - have been cancelled. In total, eight intercept tests have been conducted, five of which resulted in the destruction of the incoming target missile.

On may 4, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Alexander Yakovenko told the Interfax news agency that a "political agreement" on US-Russia missile defence cooperation had been tabled by Moscow in January this year, with the aim of concluding a document for signature by Presidents Putin and Bush when they meet in St. Petersburg in late May. Yakovenko added that the US had yet to respond to the proposal. While both sides stress the strategic, technical and economic advantages of cooperation on the issue, priorities continue to diverge, with the Russian emphasis on theatre missile defence and the need for a post-ABM Treaty framework of limitations - prohibiting, in particular, the placement of any anti-missile weapons systems in space - running up against the American embrace of 'full spectrum' (land, sea, air and space) research, development and possible deployment.

Note: Kadish's testimony mentioned the need for allied provision and enhancement of military infrastructure in the effective development of the US programme. As he noted, the UK has already agreed to upgrade a key radar facility in northern England; Denmark seems to be approaching a decision, expected to be favourable, on upgrading a similarly crucial facility in Greenland. The integration of the US-Canada North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) into the missile defence system is another issue of high military and political significance. On April 29, former Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy, writing in The Globe and Mail with law professor Michael Byers, argued vehemently against Canadian participation: "Even a cursory examination of the missile defence initiative indicates that it has little to do with protecting our continent against terrorists or 'rogue states'. The technology is yet unproved, and the primary threat comes not from missiles but from the ability of international criminals to infiltrate our borders and deploy asymmetric force in the form of box cutters, pathogens and primitive 'dirty' bombs. To the degree that a threat from intercontinental missiles does exist - in North Korea, perhaps - it is largely a result of the bellicose foreign policy now emanating from Washington. In other words, the strongest advocates of missile defence are those most involved in creating an international climate in which it might become justified. ... Joining the missile defence system would also run counter to the long-held position that Canada has maintained as an advocate and architect of arms control agreements. For decades, Canadian governments have insisted that all countries must live up to their commitments under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the chemical and biological weapons conventions. Our adherence to missile defence would condone the administration's preference for military and technological, rather than cooperative, solutions to threats posed by weapons of mass destruction." Axworthy and Byers then made reference to an issue often described by current Foreign Minister Bill Graham as a "red line" for Ottawa: "As a country with significant commercial interests in outer space, Canada has been a leading advocate of measures to prevent the weaponisation of that arena. The Bush missile defence proposals go way beyond the limited plans of the Clinton administration, prescribing a multi-tiered architecture, potentially including weapons deployed in and from outer space."

The Canadian Cabinet discussed the issue on May 6, amid reports of an imminent decision to enter discussions with Washington on the details, rather than the principle, of Ottawa's participation and the concomitant reorganisation of NORAD. Speaking after the Cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Jean Chretien told the House of Commons that the Bush missile defence plan "is a different concept from the Star Wars [Strategic Defense Initiative] of President Reagan... It is covering the territory of [North] America. We are part of America." The day before, Chretien told Parliament that "there has been an evolution in this file over the last six months. For example, there was extremely strong opposition by the Russians - that has diminished. The same thing occurred with the Chinese..." On May 7, Chretien again dealt with the issue in Parliament, dismissing suggestions of a quick resolution: "We are having a debate, there might be some consultations with the Americans, and it will take months before we will be in a position to be obliged to make a decision". Two of the three candidates vying to replace Chretien as Liberal Party leader - Deputy Prime Minister and former Foreign Minister John Manley, and former Finance Minister Paul Martin - have expressed strong support for Canadian participation. The third candidate, Heritage Minister Sheila Copps, is opposed.

Related material on Acronym website:

• Testimony by Ronald Kadish, April 9,

Reports: Text - US missile defense program 'on track', agency director says, Washington File, April 9; Alaska test bed to undergo first test in 2005, MDA Director says, Global Security Newswire, April 11; Pentagon cancels three more intercept tests, Global Security Newswire, April 21; Say no to missile defence, by Lloyd Axworthy and Michael Byers, The Globe and Mail, April 29; Putin, Bush to focus on missile defense, Associated Press, May 4; Canada may join US missile defense shield, Agence France Presse, May 5; Canadian Cabinet debates joining US missile defense shield, Agence France Presse, May 5; Missile defense decision will take months - Canada, Reuters, May 7.

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© 2003 The Acronym Institute.