February 9, 2010
The Threat
America’s vulnerability to ballistic missile attack increases with the proliferation of ballistic missile technology throughout the globe. “The Threat” outlines the danger posed by particular countries.
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Missiles of the World
A detailed database of offensive ballistic missiles throughout the world.
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Cruise Missiles
A comprehensive database of the cruise missiles around the world.
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Scenarios
Ballistic missile attacks can come in many forms. One might prefer to think of war in the modern age as “unthinkable,” but it would be irresponsible to dismiss the harm enemies may wish us. With both textual descriptions and animations, “scenarios” shows what both attacks and interceptions would look like.
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Quote
"The gravest danger to freedom lies at the crossroads of radicalism and technology. When the spread of chemical and biological and nuclear weapons, along with ballistic missile technology--when that occurs, even weak states
and small groups could attain a catastrophic power to strike great nations. Our enemies have declared this very intention, and have been caught seeking these terrible weapons. They want the capability to blackmail us, or to harm us, or to harm our friends---and we will oppose them with all our power."
- George W. Bush, West Point, New York, June 1, 2002
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News and Analysis
Ballistic Missile Defense Report
Part 2 of 3:
Homeland
The report discusses in some detail the current and planned deployments of U.S. missile defense, both at home and abroad. At home, the U.S. will field a total of 30 ground-based interceptors, with 26 in Alaska at Fort Greely and four in California at Vandenberg Air Force Base. (This is a reduction from Defense's original goal of 44.) As a matter of strategy, the position from earlier in the report is reinforced: the U.S. will maintain its slight advantage over the possibility of a yet-to-materialize long-range threat from North Korea or Iran, but will not seek to address missile defense imbalances against long-range threats from the likes of China or Russia.
While the ambitions of the homeland GMD program will remain modest from an interceptor standpoint, Defense will seek to fund some "system enhancements." These will consist of a project called RAM, intended to bolster "reliability, availability, and maintainability;" "a program to guard against ground system obsolescence;" and the "funding to restart the Future Avionics Upgrade/Obsolescence Program." Most importantly, perhaps, is the plan to fund an intercept test of an "ICBM-class target" and a "salvo test." A "salvo" test would be a multiple-target test that would seek to mimic likely real-world adversarial efforts to throw many missiles at a target in order to defeat BMD efforts.
The Missile Defense Agency will also continue development of new interceptors, including the SM-3 Block IIB, an advanced iteration of current regional missile defenses which should provide "some capability to intercept long-range missiles." MDA will also continue to develop a more advanced "two-stage ground-based interceptor," and will seek to enhance detection capabilities, both from the air and from space. Finally, Missile Field 2 at Fort Greely will be completed, providing a possible surge capability of an additional eight interceptors to meet future contingencies.
Regional
The Defense department admits that our current regional BMD deployments are "modest" when put beside the constantly advancing threat. To meet this deficiency, Defense plans to "increase the procurement of proven systems such as THAAD, the SM-3 interceptor, and the AN/TPY-2 [or "X-band"] radar." As stage two of this process, the Defense department and MDA will continue to develop and field more regional BMD. A land-based SM-3 interceptor, currently being called "Aegis Ashore," is in the works, and is planned to be operable in the "2015 time frame."
Planned upgrades to the SM-3 interceptors will include the Block IB ("by 2015"), which will have more advanced seeking, guidance, and flight-control systems than the current Block IA; the SM-3 Block IIA (scheduled to come online "toward the end of the decade"), will be faster and have further upgraded seeking capabilities; and the SM-3 Block IIB—now in the first stages of conception and development and thus still a long-time coming—is planned to have an improved kill warhead and an advanced third boost stage that will enable it to intercept long-range ICBMs.
Planned sensor and detection advancements will provide a wider area of coverage and will boost regional missile defense efficacy. The use of remote sensor data (either from aerial drones or from space) will lengthen the reach of regional missile defenses as they will not be as dependent on the physical location of Aegis ships and their individual radar footprints. Interceptors from ships or from Aegis Ashore mobile ground-emplacements will have an early launch capability, as the remote sensors guide the interceptor until the incoming missile enters the radar area of missile destroyers or THAAD emplacements. Part of this effort is being called "Early Intercept."
The report admits that the ballistic missile threat is likely to outstrip deployment availability for some time to come. The ability of the U.S. to meet this regional threat will in large part depend on the pace at which these regional BMD enhancements are put in place and their maneuverability. This means that the organizational and command structure put in place will be critical, along with our ability to integrate systems with BMD installments in territory held by allies in Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia.
DoD's Ballistic Missile Defense Report
Part 1 of 3:
The Pentagon released its 2010 Ballistic Missile Defense Review Report on Monday. After initiating a shift in missile defense policy by abandoning the ground-based interceptor plan in eastern Europe last year, the Obama administration left unclear the future of its missile defense policy. The transition to a "phased-adaptive" approach in Europe was articulated, to be sure, but there was still much fleshing out to be done. We now have the first comprehensive statement about the future of missile defense policy under the Obama administration. Part 1 of missilethreat's synopsis will treat the change in policy from the Bush administration, the Defense Department's view of the ballistic missile threat to the United States and its allies (both regional and intercontinental), and the underlying grand strategic assumptions of the document. Part 2 will discuss the BMD technological architecture in place and under development in the near- and mid-term to address homeland and regional threats. Part 3 will discuss the new bureaucratic or organizational structure for deployment and development and America's strategic BMD partners.
The theme running throughout the report—and one that perhaps marks most clearly this administration's departure from the approach of the Bush administration—is a distinction between uncertain long-range threats and certain regional threats. While Gates' defense department recognizes the long-range threat of ICBMs from Iran or North Korea, from a budgetary perspective its dominating concern is regional threats in a global environment characterized by the rapidly increasing proliferation of short-, medium-, and intermediate-range missiles.
Our Proliferating World
Both ballistic missile quality and quantity are on the rise worldwide. The impact of this fact on homeland security is uncertain because, as the report points out, neither North Korea nor Iran have yet produced "an ICBM-class warhead." While the report will later detail America's ground-based defenses against the possibility of such a threat emerging, it offers in its introduction the rather tepid statement that, "Working with the international community, the United States will continue to seek to stem these threats, through diplomacy and other means." Diplomacy has yet, it seems, to bear much fruit, and it remains unclear what "other means" this administration is willing to undertake.
The report makes very clear that Iran and North Korea are considered to be the only likely threats to the U.S. homeland. The two world powers currently capable of launching such an attack are China and Russia, but such aggression "is very unlikely and not the focus of U.S. BMD."
"Regional" threats are a different matter. North Korea, Iran, and Syria are all considered credible short-, medium-, and intermediate-range ballistic missile threats. North Korea's testing schedule of such missiles has been very active in recent years, and the report confirms that "North Korea has developed an advanced solid-propellant short-range ballistic missile," and that "a mobile IRBM is also under development." Iran, with the support of China, North Korea, and Russia, has been very active as well. The Sahab-3 (a medium-range ballistic missile), first tested in 2004, is believed to have a range of 2,000 km; more alarmingly, Iran has developed and flight-tested a more sophisticated solid-fueled missile with the same range. Finally, Syria possesses a not inconsiderable number of SCUDs and SS-21 short-range ballistic missiles, "and may have chemical warheads available for a portion of its SCUD missiles," presenting a serious mobile threat that puts almost all of Israel and parts of Iraq, Jordan, and Turkey within range.
The "trends" identified with this proliferation are troubling as well. Gone are the days of lesser powers developing primarily short-range ballistic missiles: "globally, the Intelligence Community continues to see a progression in development from short- to medium- and in some cases intermediate-range missiles." Additionally, we should expect the pace of such proliferation to accelerate, as the blossoming global "open market" in "technologies, materials, and expertise" continues to grow.
The Defense department's proposed response to such threats is two-fold: first, to focus on intelligence, by increasing America's capability and by working closely with the intelligence networks of our allies; and second, to focus on making missile defenses adaptable to a changing world.
(As one example of our changing world of easy proliferation, we have this Russian company offering cruise missiles that are outfitted in a ship-container launch system.)
Strategy and Policy
The homeland defense policy priority will now be to "defend the homeland from limited ballistic missile attack." As such, priority will be placed on "fly before you buy" technologies rather than more experimental or less operationally predictable ones. Whereas the old strategy was "to rapidly put capabilities in place to address emerging threats while those systems were still in development." In following the President's order to only move "forward with missile defenses that are affordable, proven, and responsive to the threat," Defense will shift "away from defenses planned to rely on currently immature technology, away from technologies that require unrealistic concepts of operations in order to be effective, and away from technologies intended to defeat adversarial missile threats that do not exist and are not expected to evolve in the near to midterm." Given the restricted size of the BMD slice of the budget, these are no doubt prudent shifts; however, the likely result will be that the U.S. will stay one step ahead of its adversaries rather than undertaking the effort to get two or three steps out in front.
From a doctrinal or ideological standpoint at least, the most interesting section of the whole report may come under the subhead of "Missile Defense: Deterrence, Extended Deterrence, and Assurance Goals." The administration takes an admirable step away from the old Ted Kennedy caricature of missile defense (he famously mocked it as "Star Wars") by making the argument for regional BMD capabilities as strong deterrents, inducements to non proliferation, and engines of peace.
Missile defenses are an essential element of the U.S. commitment to strengthen regional deterrence architectures against states acquiring nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction in contravention of international norms and in defiance of the international community. They also support U.S. and allied capacities for mutual defense in the face of coercion and aggression by these defiant states. In these ways, missile defenses strengthen U.S. goals of deterrence, extended deterrence, and assurance. In so doing, they contribute to international peace and stability and reinforce the global nonproliferation regime [emphasis added].
However, at the end of the same paragraph the report returns to the subject of homeland defense and offers some old Cold War strategic thinking. "While the GMD system would be employed to defend the United States against limited missile launches from any source, it does not have the capacity to cope with large scale Russian or Chinese missile attacks, and is not intended to affect the strategic balance with those countries." if nothing else, this is at least a shadow of the old Mutually Assured Destruction mentality of Cold War 'realism.' We are not in open war (cold or otherwise) with China or Russia, to be sure, but we are nonetheless restraining the longer-range ground-based missile defense system based in California and Alaska from its full potential in order to service notions of strategic balance in lieu of more assured defensive superiority.
X-Band Radar Fails in Missile Defense Test
The Missile Defense Agency has long had on its schedule a January 31 test of the ground-based midcourse missile defense system. This test was significant because it was to be the first simulation of an Iranian (as opposed to a North Korean) missile trajectory.
The simulated hostile was launched from the Kwajalein atoll in the Marshall Islands and the interceptor was fired from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The MDA is reporting no malfunctions of the test missile or the interceptor missile; however, the X-Band radar used to track the missiles and coordinate a hit-to-kill event apparently malfunctioned.
This failed test coincides with the release today of the Ballistic Missile Defense Review Report by the Pentagon. Missilethreat.com will post a more detailed summary of that report on Wednesday.
» MDA to Shoot Down Mock Iranian Missile This Month
Patriot Deployment Site in Poland Revealed
In early December, Poland and the U.S. signed an initial agreement to deploy Patriot missile defense batteries in the coming years. It wasn't until yesterday that the site was revealed to be Morag, about 30 miles southeast of the Baltic Sea and 40 miles southwest of the Russian city of Kaliningrad. The choice of site is said to have everything to do with infrastructure and nothing to do with Russia.
Russia happens to be increasing its military commitment in the Baltic, but its defense ministry denies any relationship between the interceptor site in Morag and the expansion of its Baltic fleet. More Russian surface ships, submarines, and aircraft will be deployed to the region, according Ria Novosti.
U.S. Shares Missile Tracking Tech in the Gulf
Speaking to reporters at the Middle East Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Conference, Lieutenant General Mike Hostage, commander of US Air Force Central Command, stated that the U.S. would be sharing early-warning missile launch intelligence with the Gulf Cooperation Council countries (UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar).
In the long run, missile defense would go a long way towards stabilizing the region; former UAE Air Force and Air Defense commander Khalid Abdullah Al Buainain has gone on the record saying: "The GCC needs a national and multinational ballistic missile defence (BMD) to counter long-range proliferating regional ballistic missile threats."
Bulava Missile Contains Design Flaw
Ria Novosti is reporting that one of its defense sources has confirmed that Russia's recent setbacks in testing her Bulava long-range submarine-launched ICBM are due to a design flaw rather than more benign malfunctions. The flaw is affecting the third-stage separation of the missile.» Another Failed Bulava Test for Russia
China Tests Missile Defense
The Chinese state news agency Xinhua released a terse report Monday announcing a successful test of "ground-based midcourse interception technology;" the Pentagon confirmed the detection of two discrete missile launches and an "exo-atmospheric collision." It remains unclear whether the technology involved was similar to America's PAC-3 interceptors or whether China has made advancements to longer-range ground-based interceptors, such as those deployed by the U.S. in Alaska and California.
The test comes amid Chinese protests over proposed U.S. arms sales to Taiwan.
India Tests New Air-to-Air Missile
According to state-run media, India tested the solid-fueled short-range Astra missile on Tuesday at a Defence Research and Development Organization site in the state of Orissa. The Astra stands as another example of India's burgeoning indigenous missile program; solid-fuel offers better maneuverability and faster deployment.
India has seen some recent setbacks in missile development, while they have seen rapid improvement in their missile defense capabilities.
Israel Tests Iron Dome
Over the past two days, the Israeli military has conducted the final tests of its Iron Dome missile defense system. Iron Dome is a component part of Israel's growing multi-layered missile defense architecture, and is tasked with stopping the short-range rockets (among others, Grads, Katyushas, and Qassams) fired by Hamas from the Gaza strip and by Hezbollah into northern Israel.
This testing comes on the heels of the massive Juniper Cobra joint war games exercise conducted by the U.S. and Israel in late October and November of 2009. That exercise was meant to test and improve the connectivity and interoperability of U.S. and Israeli armed forces in the event of a missile attack. Although it was said to have been in the works for some time, the political and strategic timing of the exercise considering Iran's recent saber-rattling couldn't have been better. The sea-based U.S. Aegis system that is now tasked with protecting Eastern Europe was used in that exercise, along with the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), and the forward-based X-band radar that was deployed in Israel in 2008.
Between Iron Dome, David's Sling (another joint project of the U.S. and Israel tasked with the interception of cruise missiles), the Arrow-2 system that has been deployed for some time, and a longer-range Arrow-3 system, Israel is quickly becoming one of a few world-leaders in missile defense technology and deployment.
In related news, on December 21, 2009 the White House announced the signing of the latest defense appropriation bill in which $202 million is provided to help fund Israeli missile defenses.
» President Obama and Congress fund Israeli missile defense
» Longer Range Rockets Threaten Israel from Gaza
» Israel Conducts Successful Short Range Missile Intercept
» Israeli Missile Defense Test Success
» Missile system details for: Arrow, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), Sea-Based X-Band Radar (SBX), Forward-Based X-Band Radar-Transportable, Aegis Ship-Based BMD
MDA to Shoot Down Mock Iranian Missile This Month
The Missile Defense Agency is scheduled to attempt to shoot down a mock Iranian ICBM this month. The test, originally scheduled for 2009, has been on the MDA's agenda for the last few years. The mock Iranian missile will be fired from the Marshall Islands and the interceptor from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
This test will present a more technically advanced problem when compared to the recent intercept tests of mock North Korean missiles. The trajectory of an incoming Iranian ICBM will be much steeper and the velocity much higher, making an intercept more challenging than that of a North Korean missile launched from a closer location.
The MDA will also be using the occasion to test its new "Capability-2" package of sensors and software in the intercept missile.
For more, please visit our News Archive…
Overview
An explanation of what ballistic missiles are, how to defend against them, and the fundamental issues which drive the debate over whether or not to defend America.
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IWG Report 2009
Independent Working Group Report: Missile Defense, the Space Relationship, and the Twenty-First Century. »»
Heritage's 33 Minutes
Watch the Heritage Foundation's new film on the threat posed by long-range ballistic missiles, 33 Minutes: Protecting America in the New Missile Age. »»
Missile Defense Systems
Ballistic missiles may be destroyed during their flight using systems based on land, sea, air, or space. Each system has particular virtues and vices: a robust and layered defense is necessary to provide for the strategic defense of the United States. This section contains information on past and present missile defenses of the United States, Russia, and other countries, including the land-based systems being deployed at Fort Greely, Alaska.
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Reports and Analyses
Numerous government and academic assessments have been conducted on missile defense, the threat posed by proliferating ballistic missiles, and related subjects. This section contains the best reports and analyses from both advocates and opponents of missile defense.
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Treaties, Laws, and Resolutions
This section contains resources for legal aspects of ballistic missile defense. Until President Bush withdrew the United States on June 2002, the ABM Treaty was the primary obstacle to deploying missile defenses for some thirty years. Information on the treaty’s significance, history, and demise is contained here, along with all other treaties related to missile defense, laws passed by the United States Congress, and resolutions by state legislatures.
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