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12 September 2005 |
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http://www.afpc.org |
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AMERICA’S ERODING MISSILE DEFENSE EDGE Despite rapid advances in defense development in recent years, United Press International (September 8) reports that the long-term superiority of American missile defenses is at risk from two emerging trends. First, existing anti-missile technologies are fragile, and capable of external disruption by software viruses or cyber-attack – a vulnerability that strategic competitors such as China know well. Second, and even more significant, is the fact that the United States is losing ground in the quality and number of its software engineers and resources. As a result, the news agency maintains, the main question facing the U.S. in the years ahead is whether it can “continue to secure its most vital IT systems for both conventional military supremacy and anti-ballistic missile defense when other nations already equal us in the quality of their software engineers and are already outstripping us in the sheer quantity of them?” MISSILE STRIDES IN SYRIA The regime of Bashar al-Assad is reaping rewards from North Korea’s proliferation practices, a new Congressional report has assessed. Middle East Newsline (August 30) cites the study, issued by the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress, as saying that North Korea has already helped Syria deploy Scud-D, Scud C, Scud-B and SS-21 short-range ballistic missiles, all of which “could allow Syria to strike deeply into the territories of potential regional adversaries Israel, Iraq, Turkey, and Jordan.” The report likewise states that “North Korea is also believed to be training missile engineers and technicians, most notably Syrian, in the domestic production of Scud missiles.” DEFENSE YEARNINGS IN EUROPE According to a new poll jointly sponsored by the George C. Marshall Center for Security Studies in Garmisch, Germany, and the U.S.-based Missile Defense
Advocacy Alliance, seven in ten Europeans favor missile defense. The poll, which was carried out in nine European countries – France, Germany, Britain, Spain, Italy, Poland, the Czech
Republic, the Netherlands and Denmark – has found that some 71 percent of respondents believe in the need for protection against the threat of missile attack for their respective nations.
“It is clear from the survey that the threat is real, urgent and needs to be addressed. In addition, there is a strong belief that NATO nations need to be at the forefront in finding a
ballistic missile defense system capable of providing security for the nations in the region,” Dr. John Rose, director of the Marshall Center, said in a public statement accompanying the
formal release of the findings on September 7th. The Bush administration’s emerging BMD infrastructure is no match for Chinese intercontinental ballistic missiles, the Pentagon’s top official in charge of missile defense has admitted.
In comments to reporters carried by the Washington Times on September 9th, Missile Defense Agency director Henry Obering said that the initial anti-missile capabilities being deployed
by the United States are currently incapable of addressing China’s expanding arsenal of long-range missiles. “We are not designed to go against a Chinese threat [at the moment],” Obering has
said. But, according to the MDA chief, the United States will need to address Chinese capabilities in its future development planning “because that is prudent.” The Hamas terrorist organization is several months away from deploying new, extended-range versions of its “Kassam” rockets, Israeli intelligence sources have warned. Yediot Ahronot
(September 4) reports that the new rockets will have a 16.5 kilometer range, nearly double their current 9-kilometer reach, and will be capable of striking previously secure targets in
Israel, including the power station in Ashkelon and even the private residence of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
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