Allard Calls for Missile Interceptors In Space
April 9, 2008 :: Defense News :: News
Speaking at this week's 24th Annual National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Senator Wayne Allard of Colorado argued that the next logical phase of U.S. missile defense ought to be interceptors in earth orbit.
A layer of space-based interceptors would enable a global on-call missile defense capability that could produce a timely response to rapidly evolving situations and would enable the U.S. to be prepared for all types of threats that could develop out of unpredictable locations.
In his remarks, Allard explained that this kind of layered missile defense is more appropriate in the post-Cold War era during which small terrorist groups and rogue nations are able to launch missiles around the world. The implementation of such a program, Allard said, would provide an extra layer of defense rather than replace existing segments. "This makes more sense than going back into the 'assured mutual destruction' mentality of times gone by."
The current White House budget for a space test bed for missile defense for the Missile Defense Agency is set at $10 million. Allard warned that the incoming administration will need to campaign aggressively in order to keep the possibility of a space test bed alive.
The next administration will have to choose which direction to take and which way it wants to go: continue the trend demonstrated by the 110th Congress of prioritizing near-term projects at the expense of future projects, or invest in a comprehensive long-term goal such as space-based interceptors that would be able to reach targets more rapidly and are capable of destroying enemy missiles in the boost phase.
(Article, Link)
» More stories on: Space-Based Systems
Karako on 25th Anniversary of SDI
March 27, 2008 :: Investor’s Business Daily :: Analysis
On the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Strategic Defense Intitiative, Tom Karako, director of programs for the Claremont Institute, writes in Investor's Business Daily comparing current missile defense policies with those begun by Ronald Reagan. Excerpts:
...The Bush administration has taken important first steps toward national missile defense. It withdrew from the ABM Treaty in 2002 and has made tremendous progress in deploying missile defenses, two things Reagan did not do. Current programs deserve much praise, but nevertheless fall short of the threat-based defense SDI in important ways pursued by Reagan.
Reagan envisioned a defense that was strategic, oriented to stopping the most an enemy could threaten. SDI emphasized interceptors in low Earth orbit. Space-based interceptors formed the primary front line of a defense, intended to be supplemented by sea- and land-based interceptors.
By the early 1990s, SDI had advanced to the level of the major defense acquisition program, a constellation of small, space-based interceptors. The Brilliant Pebbles concept promised a cost-effective way to destroy missiles in their ascent or boost phase, when they are most visible and vulnerable.
As the Missile Defense Agency's historian has documented, the program was cut for political reasons just as it was nearing the deployment phase. Its technologies were, however, successfully space-tested by the Clementine and Astrid programs in 1994.
Some hesitation about space defenses comes from the idea that space is a weapons-free preserve. But the high ground of space is merely an extension of strategic geography, and has long been "weaponized."
Armies project power on land, navies on the high seas, aircraft in the atmosphere. Satellites and missiles do so above the atmosphere. Satellites that surveil the enemy or send GPS coordinates to a warfighter are no less weapons because they do not go "boom." If a satellite in orbit helps direct a laser-guided bomb to a target in Afghanistan, in exactly what sense is space not weaponized?
All ballistic missiles travel through space, and it makes sense to intercept them from and in space. Putting interceptors closer to the paths of these missiles shortens the distance they must travel and widens the window of reaction time.
Orbited interceptors are already accelerated to 8 kilometers per second, and do not require a massive booster rocket. Any surface-based system, by contrast, retains the physical challenge of needing to be accelerated at a moment's notice. In missile interception, seconds matter. Basing in space buys time.
Orbital basing also increases the ability to destroy missiles in their boost phase. Unless they are close to the launch site, ground-based interceptors cannot reach missiles in their boost phase if launched inland. Orbits know no political boundaries, so orbiting interceptors could reach missiles in boost phase even if launched deep inside Iran, Russia or China.
...One may defend the modesty of the current approach on the ground that it is imprudent to irritate our strategic competitors in a time of war. But let us have no confusion about the degree to which some missiles retain a free ride to the American homeland.
Let us admit we intend to remain vulnerable to even accidental and unauthorized missiles coming from Russia or China. The path of deliberate minimalism is deterred from boldly pursuing the most effective missile defense systems. Such self-deterrence did not characterize Reagan or SDI.
As Secretary of State Rice remarked in February, "It is true that the United States once had a Strategic Defense Initiative, a program that was intended to deal with the question of the Russian strategic nuclear threat. This is not that program. This is not the son of that program. This is not the grandson of that program."
This is true. Twenty five years later, the S has been dropped from SDI. ...
(Article, Link)
» More stories on: Analysis, Policy, Space-Based Systems
Tellis: Don't Panic About Space Weapons
February 22, 2008 :: The Wall Street Journal :: Analysis
Ashley J. Tellis, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, analyzest the Chinese and Russian draft treaty aimed at banning weapons in space in the February 22 edition of the Wall Street Journal. Tellis argues that the treaty would in fact
neither effectively prohibit their deployment, nor conclusively annul the threat of force against space objects. It would only produce the illusion of security, while doing nothing to eliminate the counterspace capabilities currently present in many countries, especially China.
The principal problem is the treaty addresses weapons in space (of which there are none), as opposed to land- and sea-based kinetic, directed-energy and electromagnetic attack systems. However, even a retooled treaty to expand arms control regulation for these systems would miss the mark as "counterspace weapons are impossible to identify by national technical means, or even by intrusive inspections." An outright ban on these weapons would be unlikely given political considerations, and a treaty that allowed the development and deployment of these weapons but not their use would be open to abuse. Tellis argues that China and Russia support the draft treaty because of three political and strategic reasons.
First, they genuinely fear an imminent American deployment of space weapons—perhaps in connection with missile defense— and want a treaty to impede that deployment...Second, a space security treaty allows Russia and China to engage in some eye-catching histrionics. It enables them to dominate international public diplomacy and paint the U.S. as the irresponsible driver of a new arms race... Third, the Russian-Chinese draft treaty remains a splendid way for Beijing to draw international attention away from its own growing counterspace program—even as it enables Russia to assuage its own discomfort with China's space-denial capabilities.
Tellis concludes that the Bush administration is correct to reject this treaty, and encourages any new presidential administration to do the same. (Link)
» More stories on: Analysis, Space-Based Systems, Russia, China
Aegis Interceptor Successfully Destroys Satellite
February 21, 2008 :: New York Times :: News
The United States military reports the successful downing of a disable spy satellite using a specially modified sea-based SM-3 missile defense interceptor. The main purpose of the intercept was to destroy the fuel tank, which contained toxic hydrazine, before the ailing satellite reentered the earth's atmosphere. The successful intercept represents tests of both the sea-based Aegis missile defense system and a test of American anti-satellite (ASAT) capabilities.
Without the military's intervention, the satellite would have reentered the atmosphere and fallen to Earth during the first week in March, and an area of several hundred miles could have been contaminated with its hydrazine fuel.
The SM-3 interceptor underwent software modifications to allow it to hit the satellite instead of a ballistic missile, which would have had a slightly different trajectory. The mission comes nearly a year after a controversial Chinese anti-satellite test, in which Beijing used a missile to destroy an old weather satellite. The Chinese test drew widespread international concern, and also created a considerable amount of space debris. The American satellite destruction, by contrast, created a minimum amount of debris. (Article, Link)
» More stories on: Space-Based Systems
» Missile system details for: Aegis Ship-Based BMD
Crouch and Joseph on the Next Tough Steps for Missile Defense Policy
January 22, 2008 :: The Wall Street Journal :: Analysis
In today's Wall Street Journal former Deputy National Security Adviser J.D. Crouch, II and former Undersecretary of State Robert Joseph call for a bold and firm approach to ballistic missile defense and to space-based interceptors in particular. In "Tough Calls, Good Calls," Crouch and Joseph liken the Bush administration's decision to withdraw from the ABM Treaty and to begin to deploy ballistic missile defense system to other tough choices guided by strategic foresight which have since been proven sound. Crouch and Joseph point out that critics objecting to the ABM Treaty withdrawal predicted consequences of gloom and doom which never materialized, such as a new arms race. "None of these things have happened as a result of the ABM Treaty withdrawal. But the decision will enable us to counter a still-growing 21st century threat."
Crouch and Joseph go on to argue that important, and "tough calls" remain for ballistic missile defense policyand the next presidential administration. These steps include the European third-site for Ground-Based Interceptors, measures to combat countermeasures by North Korea and Iran, the development of multiple-kill vehicles, enhanced sea-based defenses, and finally space-based interceptors:
What are the next steps that the country should take to capitalize fully on this strategic choice?
First, the president's call for a third strategic missile defense site in Europe must be carried out. This site provides additional capability to protect the U.S., and to protect as well our European allies from a growing Iranian missile threat. The site would further cement the development of a global sensor-and-interceptor network necessary for effective missile defense. Failure to follow through would have implications for our alliances both inside and out of Europe.
Second, we can expect that rogue states such as North Korea and Iran are already looking at ways to counter our existing defenses. One way they might do this is to deploy decoys or other countermeasures on their existing offensive missiles that must be attacked, and could thus exhaust our limited supply of interceptors. Fortunately, we can now explore cost-effective solutions to this threat.
One solution is to develop interceptors with multiple kill vehicles -- something that was explicitly banned by the ABM Treaty. Another solution is to develop advanced discrimination techniques to tell the decoys from the real threats. These techniques include using radars, space-based sensors, or a new concept that uses dozens of miniature interceptors that can literally sweep away an entire threat cloud of decoys, allowing the missile interceptor to hone in on the real warhead.
None of these techniques is fully proven, but neither was the hit-to-kill technology begun by President Reagan and later successfully deployed by President Bush. We must focus investment in the discrimination problem and improve our existing systems with these new capabilities.
Third, we can do more to increase the capabilities of existing assets. We can, for example, improve our sea-based capabilities -- both our performance against long-range missiles and the number of assets deployed. Under the ABM Treaty, we had to "dumb down" our so-called theater systems to ensure that they could not be used to defend the U.S. from attack. Free from this restraint, as well as from the Treaty's prohibition on mobile-launch platforms, we can now do much more to integrate our defense with that of our allies and make the most of the assets we have deployed.
Finally, we must look again at space as a place to deploy interceptors.
There is no question that space provides the highest leverage against the missile threat: Targets are more visible, more accessible and more vulnerable when attacked from space. While there are concerns about "weaponizing space," these pale in comparison to the increasing vulnerability of U.S. space-based satellites by weapons from the ground traversing space. The recent Chinese anti-satellite test was a wake-up call.
Space-based interceptors, like those proposed by former President George H. W. Bush in 1991, have the potential to strengthen missile defense, and to provide protection for key intelligence and communications assets in space that are now vulnerable from ground-based attack.
The progress of the past six years stems from one tough decision. That very same decision will allow us to stay ahead of the 21st century ballistic-missile threat.
(Article, Link)
» More stories on: Analysis, Deployment, Policy, Space-Based Systems, Treaties and Agreements
Oberg on the Weaponization of Space
October 9, 2007 :: The Space Review :: Analysis
James Oberg writes on the weaponization of space in the October 9 edition of The Space Review. Oberg reacts to the clear media bias against U.S. space programs, and charges that the media further encourages inflammatory Russian remarks about having to match the U.S. military presence in space. Oberg argues:
Like children drawing glee in poking a stick into an anthill to see the turmoil they can cause, or teenagers throwing rocks at a chained junkyard dog just to hear him snarl, some elements of the Western news media seem to evince diabolical delight in seeing just how they can inflame good old fashioned Russian paranoia about "enemy threats", especially from the United States. Regardless of the rationale, such exercises leave measurable scars on the international diplomatic scene. ...
To fabricate and encourage Russian fears of the imminent American "weaponization of space", then, isn't merely a matter of politically useful alarmism and ideologically satisfying posturing. To the degree that it reinforces Russian fears and encourages Russian militaristic responses, it is downright dangerous and irresponsible. Shame on the space-war fear mongers: they are part of the problem, not part of the solution, which is accuracy.
Most recently, articles in the New York Times recognizing the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik cited that the Soviet satellite motivated Eisenhower to enter a "scary new world of space arms" by "publicly encouraged peaceful uses of space even while spending billions to explore futuristic weaponry like death rays fired from rocket ships." Oberg argues that the article ignores the most important details of Eisenhower's space policy, such as "deliberately assign[ing] America's satellite project to a research rocket rather than a weapons rocket... and establish[ing] a civilian-controlled space exploration administration (something the Soviets never did)." Also, the New York Times's article omits critical information about the Soviet's history in space.
Not discussed here are the orbital thermonuclear weapons designed, tested, and deployed by the USSR in the 1960s, whose operation was expressly forbidden by the Outer Space Treaty of 1967-a scrap of paper that provided no protection to their use in a sneak attack on the United States. Not mentioned... are the handguns that the Russians are allowed to pack at the International Space Station (NASA's website doesn't mention them either), or the much more serious space-to-space attack vehicles (on standby in earth-based launch tubes) whose very existence Moscow denied for decades.
The revisionist perspective of history has a profound effect today, as the U.S. deploys the first components of a missile defense system, and considers future space-based components. The Russian government, supported by the U.S. media, has hitherto condemned these efforts as sparking a new weaponization of space. Russian Colonel General Vladimir Popovkin recently claimed Russia would "not allow any other country to play the master in outer space. The consequences of positioning strike forces in orbit will be too serious." Once again, the facts of the planned space system are ignored, Oberg suggests: "Proposed space-based anti-missile systems will be designed with guidance sensors that depend on hot rocket exhausts and large missile skins, the sort of thing you'd see during an actual launch. Satellites orbiting passively high above Earth are not nearly as big as missiles, and are nowhere near as hot. They usually aren't firing rocket engines at all. Anti-missile systems of the type under consideration probably could not even detect such targets, much less hit them." (Article, Link)
» More stories on: Analysis, Russia, Space-Based Systems
China Could Develop Anti-Satellite Weapons within Three Years
August 14, 2007 :: News
Lieutenant General Kevin Campbell, head of the U.S. Army's Space and Missile Defense Command, on August 14 stated that China could be three years away from being able to disrupt U.S. military satellites in a regional conflict. Speaking at an annual missile defense conference in Huntsville, Alabama, Campbell said China's anti-satellite test in January was a clear demonstration of its ability to destroy an orbiting satellite.
The anti-satellite missiles, coupled with its satellite jamming and computer network attack skills provide China with, "multi-dimensional capabilities to attack various [U.S.] systems that are in orbit today." The Lieutenant General concluded that "guaranteed space superiority in all future conflicts as well as in peacetime" needed to permeate everything the U.S. military does. "One does not have to get caught up in arguments over whether or not to weaponize space, or whether this becomes an arms race... It is simply irresponsible for us not to plan for, and to think about and to assure that we can have freedom of action." (Article, Link)
» More stories on: China, Space-Based Systems
Alaska to Revise Emergency Response Plan to Include Preparation for EMP Attack
May 29, 2007 :: News
On May 24, the Alaska State Emergency Response Commission was briefed by the Institute of the North, based in Anchorage, on the dangers from an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack delivered by ballistic missiles. As a result of this briefing, Alaska will include preparation for an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack when it revises its emergency response plan.
An electromagnetic pulse occurs when a nuclear warhead is detonated between 40 and 400 kilometers above the Earth's surface. The explosion creates a pulse that disrupts and damages electric power grids and electronic devices; a nuclear weapon with a yield of 30 kilotons detonated at an altitude of 100 kilometers could have devastating effects of up to 70% of electrical systems up to a thousand miles in every direction.
Testifying before the Alaska State Emergency Response Commission, Institute of the North Senior Fellow Mead Treadwell noted that, "What makes contingency planning on this issue so critical is that in the case of an EMP attack, Alaska could be losing all these capacities at once, without being able to call upon outside assistance."
Alaska Homeland Security Director John Madden, co-chair of the Alaska State Emergency Response Commission, stated that planning for the threat of EMP will include integration, implementation and survivability measures, and that he plans to present the issue before the Department of Homeland Security later this summer in order to raise EMP preparedness as a national issue, not just an Alaska issue.
Treadwell also urged the Commission to consider the cost-benefit implications for EMP emergency planning since even a one-time attack would be financially devastating. "Indeed, such a calculation could factor into national decisions regarding expanding a missile defense program," he added.
Treadwell quoted author Thomas Schelling to emphasize that, though unprecedented, there is, "…a tendency in our planning to confuse the unfamiliar with the improbable. The contingency we have not considered looks strange; what looks strange is therefore improbable; what seems improbable need not be considered seriously."
A report by the 2004 Commission to Assess the Threat to the Untied States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack noted that, "…one or a few high-altitude nuclear detonations can produce EMP effects that can potentially disrupt or damage electronic and electrical systems over much of the United States, virtually simultaneously, at a time determined by an adversary." The executive summary of the EMP Commission report is viewable online at www.missilethreat.com/empreport.
The briefing follows the release of a nationwide survey of Adjutants General on issues such as missile defense and EMP attack that was conducted jointly by the Anchorage-based Institute of the North and the Claremont Institute of Claremont, California. Survey results revealed that our nation’s National Guard leaders are unprepared to respond to an EMP attack and would like further information on the subject.
Both the Institute of the North and the Claremont Institute, publisher of the website www.missilethreat.com, have been working closely together for more than 10 years on policy issues related to the strategic defense of the United States. One goal of the collaboration is to help state and local officials and citizens understand policy options at all levels related to ballistic missile defense. (Link)
» Press Release on Insitute of the North Briefing for Alaska State Emergency Response Commission
» More stories on: Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Weapons, Analysis, Space-Based Systems
Chinese Test Anti-Satellite Weapon
January 18, 2007 :: Aviation Week & Space Technology :: News
Aviation Week & Space Technology reports that China has successfully performed an anti-satellite (ASAT) test at an altitude around 500 miles. The test reportedly took place on January 11, with an aging Chinese weather satellite being destroyed. The satellite, designated FY-1C, was reportedly targeted with a kinetic kill vehicle launched on board a ballistic missile. A cloud of debris reportedly exists in the satellite's prior orbit. The capability to destroy space-based systems is a significant one, given the extent the United States depends upon such systems. (Article, Link)
» New York Times: National Security Council Confirms Chinese ASAT Test
» More stories on: China, Testing - Foreign, Space-Based Systems
IBD on the “Spirit of Reykjavik”
October 11, 2006 :: Investor’s Business Daily :: Analysis
This week marks the twentieth anniversary of President Ronald Reagan’s bold stand against trading missile defense for an arms treaty, writes Investor’s Business Daily in an editorial entitled “Reykjavik Forever.” In October 1986, during a meeting between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in Reykjavik, Iceland, the Soviet premier unexpectedly offered an unprecedented reduction in nuclear weapons. His price was that the U.S. abandon all but the most rudimentary research on the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), which Reagan had called “a new hope for our children in the 21st century.” According to contemporary accounts, Reagan gathered his papers, stood, and told Gorbachev, “No way.” Criticism and derision followed immediately. U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar compared SDI to France’s disastrous Maginot Line in World War II. In a New York Times op-ed, Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA), said “Star Wars is a physical and technological impossibility,” adding that “it is difficult to believe that any other president since World War II would have ignored the opportunity that knocked at Reykjavik.” Claiborne Pell (D-RI), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, lamented, “This is a sad day for mankind.” Yet as Investor’s Business Daily points out, “history proved the critics all wrong—including the scores of scientists who knew so much better than this simpleton who somehow landed in the White House.” In several years, Gorbachev was gone, and the Soviet Union imploded. At the time of Reagan’s death, Gennady Gerasimov, senior Soviet foreign ministry spokesman admitted that SDI had been “a very successful blackmail.”
As for SDI, Investor’s Business Daily adds that “today, U.S. interceptor missiles that can stop incoming nuclear warheads in space—Teddy Kennedy’s ‘physical and technological impossibility’—are an operational reality.” This is only partially true. The U.S. has deployed the ground-based midcourse defense system in Alaska and California, which recently intercepted a live target missile. Reagan’s vision for strategic defenses, however, has yet to come. The U.S. has not yet deployed the necessary space-based missile defense assets, such as Brilliant Pebbles, capable of targeting and destroying long-range ballistic missiles in mid-trajectory. Most of the U.S., including the East Coast, remains vulnerable to ballistic missile attack, as does the entire homeland from a ship-launched short range ballistic missile against a coastal city. On the twentieth anniversary of Reykjavik, while celebrating Reagan’s bold stand against trading away missile defense, Americans should also ask when the U.S. will implement the former President’s full vision for the strategic defense of the nation. (Article, Link)
» More stories on: Space-Based Systems, Russia, Policy, Analysis
» Missile system details for: Brilliant Pebbles
