|
11 July 2004 |
|
www.newspress.com |
|
In a cavernous building at Vandenberg Air Force base, dozens of people in hard hats labor over four missiles. The nose of each missile is open, revealing a "smart bullet" the size of a refrigerator. It is an "extra-atmospheric kill vehicle" meant to smash into an incoming ballistic missile at 15,000 miles per hour within 30 minutes of a launch from an attack on the United States. By the end of September, these interceptors will become part of the nation's first rudimentary missile defense shield. In all, there will be 10 interceptors -- four at Vandenberg and the rest at Fort Greely in Alaska. The first interceptors could be in silos in Alaska by the end of this month. "The significance is that for the first time we will have at least a limited defense against a ballistic missile attack," said Rick Lehner, communications director for the Missile Defense Agency. "That's something we don't have now." With so much attention being directed at the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan and the ongoing war on terror, this little-noticed work marks a huge step into the unknown for U.S. defense policy. Some are trumpeting it as a historic milestone, a first step at ending the brinkmanship of nuclear deterrence. But others see missile defense as an easily countered, astronomically expensive and untested system that could trigger a new arms race. Critics say missile defense won't work and spending to deploy the system pulls money from efforts to defend against real threats from terrorists. At Vandenberg, where workers are compressing nine months of building into a blazing 90-day schedule, such criticism is dismissed. "Anybody who tells you that this isn't going to work doesn't know what they're talking about," said Maj. David Latham, an Army Ranger who is in charge of the site construction at the base. "It does work. I've seen it." "Irresponsible Exaggerations" Once pejoratively dubbed "Star Wars" for its emphasis on space-based lasers and missiles, the new ground-based missile defense system depends on precision-guided interceptors to smash an incoming missile as it arcs out in space on its way to a target here in the United States. The military has shown that it can "hit to kill" an incoming missile, but even military planners concede that the tests have had mixed success. None of the eight interceptor tests has realistically mirrored an attack, and although more tests are planned this summer, the last one -- in late 2002 from Vandenberg -- failed. It's been two years since the last test, and Missile Defense Agency officials say they have made quantum leaps since then. Two tests are planned this year, including one this summer and another in the fall. Military planners say the system being deployed this year is rudimentary and doesn't reflect the more robust defense they envision in the future. The current system won't have some of the crucial radar needed. It will depend on existing military satellites and radar on the Aleutian Islands in Alaska to detect launches, as well as ground-based radar at Beale Air Force Base in Northern California to track the missiles. By early next year, military planners hope to have radar aboard Aegis Navy destroyers to give them better tracking and detection abilities. Still, the system will be enough, Missile Agency officials say, to provide protection from a very limited missile attack launched by a country like North Korea. But not everyone agrees that the system will offer even this much protection. "Frankly, in terms of defensive capability, placing the interceptors in silos this year means nothing," said Lisebeth Gronlund, a senior scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists and a research scientists at MIT. "In terms of political impact it probably means a lot more . . . This is something of a Holy Grail for a subset of the Republican Party and I imagine they will have op-eds and articles saying, ÔFinally, we are not defenseless.' " Ms. Gronlund says such claims would be "irresponsible exaggerations." In three of the eight tests, the interceptors missed. And although five hit their mark, the target missile did not have more than one decoy and a few had homing signals to help the interceptor find and hit them, Ms. Gronlund said. Ms. Gronlund and other critics of missile defense say the decoys that could be used by an attacker to trick the missile defense system are simple countermeasures. They could consist of mylar balloons released with the warhead in space. Because there is no atmosphere in space, the balloons would travel at the same speed as the warhead. Radar would have trouble discerning the balloons from the weapon. Attackers could also place the warhead in a mylar balloon, making it that much more confusing. Although the heat signal from a warhead is fairly easy to pick up with infrared radar, the balloon could include small heaters to confuse detection. Or an attacker could foil the system by simply putting a nuclear weapon on a boat anchored just outside a major U.S. port, Ms. Gronlund said. In May, the Union of Concerned Scientists, a group frequently critical of the Bush administration, submitted a detailed technical report to Congress about the missile defense system, saying its deployment this year "will have no demonstrated defensive capability and will be ineffective against a real attack by long-range ballistic missiles." Although part of the motivation for deploying the missile defense system is in response to the new realities of nuclear weapons in the hands of nations like North Korea and Iran, the strategy doesn't take into account the new terror threats faced by the nation, critics say. "They're assuming a well-behaved attacker," Ms. Gronlund said. "It's so misguided, especially after 9/11." Beyond the feasibility issue is the priority set by spending so much on missile defense. Although the $10.2 billion earmarked for the program this year is only a fraction of the $460 billion defense budget, it's hundreds of times more than what the United States is spending on such things as port security, for instance. The Coast Guard estimates it would need about $500 million to adequately secure the nation's 361 seaports, but is making do with about $46 million. According to Ms. Gronlund, the U.S. could reduce the threat from nuclear weapons by working to secure the existing stockpiles of weapons in the United States and Russia. She also believes that getting the two countries' missiles off alert status would go a long way toward reducing the threat of a nuclear missile attack. Ms. Gronlund and the Union of Concerned Scientists say the United States and other nations should work on treaties to reduce nuclear stockpiles. The United States has about 12,000 ICBMs and Russia about 28,000. China has about 31 ICBMs. By contrast, North Korea so far has short-range missiles, but no long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles. Rogue States For supporters of the system, it is the possibility of a missile strike from countries like North Korea or Iran that is most troubling. The threat from the destructive power of the United States' nuclear arsenal might not be enough to dissuade an attack, said Tom Karako, editor of MissileThreat.org, an online publication put together by the Claremont Institute, a conservative think tank. That strategy assumes that the decision by a rogue state to launch a nuclear missile is controlled by a "rational actor." That might assume too much, Mr. Karako said. But even a rudimentary missile defense system "is significant for the simple fact that right now there's no obstacle to a missile that a North Korea might want to lob at us," Mr. Karako said. "With the new system, we will have a rudimentary defense against a small attack like that." In addition, the technology has a sort of leveling effect, Mr. Karako said. "North Korea doesn't want to downgrade or eliminate the missile hold they have on us," he said. "They're a relatively two-bit country, but nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles give them a unique hold on a superpower. Missile defense returns things to a more natural relationship: The United States regains the ability to fulfill its obligation to defend its population." One theory is that whether the technology works or not, it will add a level of uncertainty for potential attackers. If they don't know whether the United States can shoot down one of their missiles, the thinking goes, they might be less likely to pursue an expensive effort to develop such weapons. Others argue, however, that countries like China might feel more inclined to develop additional missiles or new technology to circumvent a U.S. defense system. Mr. Karako said critics of the system can't let go of the idea of mutually assured destruction, a sort of murder-suicide pact in which superpowers refrain from using nuclear weapons out of fear that the other side will retaliate and incinerate any attacker. "We need to decide for ourselves if we should have continued faith in a bankrupt doctrine or whether we want to defend ourselves," he said. Although Mr. Karako says that while the strategy kept the superpowers from dropping nuclear bombs on each other for almost 50 years, the proliferation of those weapons and the possibility of unstable people getting their hands on them requires a new approach. In fact, he believes current spending on missile defense isn't enough. It's only about 2 percent of the current defense budget. The system being developed now is a cheaper ground-based missile defense approved during the Clinton administration. But a fully functioning missile shield requires the ability to blast missiles out of the sky soon after they are launched, Mr. Karako said. The only way to do that effectively is to establish space-based lasers or missiles, which could effectively zap missiles in their vulnerable boost phase soon after launch. The deployment of the missile defense system will be phased in over the next decade or so. Instead of developing and testing a system before deploying it, military planners are going through something called "evolutionary acquisition," essentially allowing them to test and hone the system while it is also being deployed. Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish, the outgoing director of the Missile Defense Agency, told a congressional committee in March that because of the scope and the coverage of the system, it is necessary to "fly while you buy." "This is not a concept designed to trick or mislead," he said. "It is simply the logical response to the following question: Defenseless in the face of unpredictable threats, which would we rather have -- some capability today or none as we seek a one hundred percent solution?" During congressional debate over the defense department spending, this is where much of the criticism fell. Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., said she supported further research but didn't want to authorize the budget for deploying the missile defense system until further testing was done. "Odds that a terrorist or non-state actors will use ballistics missiles to attack the United States in this manner remains, in my estimation, relatively low," Sen. Feinstein said during the debate. "Missile defense would have done nothing to stop 9/11. And missile defense would do nothing to stop a bomb smuggled into this country on a container ship or through another 'soft' point of entry." The Senate ultimately approved the spending. Echoing the refrain from many of the missile defense supporters, Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Penn., told the Associated Press that not spending the money could end up costing even more. "What's the price of New York City?" Rep. Weldon said. "Is it $100 million? A billion? If one nuclear warhead's able to penetrate our airspace and destroy one city, what's the price?" "Son of Star Wars" Envisioned 20 years ago when President Ronald Reagan announced his plans for the Strategic Defense Initiative, missile defense has churned through about $73 billion during its evolution -- $20 billion in the last four years. Each three-stage interceptor missile costs between $30 and $40 million. Costing $10.2 billion this year alone, the ground-based missile defense interceptors -- ignobly referred to as "Son of Star Wars" by some critics -- are but one part of a whole array of military hardware intended for the national missile defense system. The history of weapons designed to shoot down missiles actually goes back to the Second World War, when British and American planners studied ways to counter the German V-1 and V-2 rockets hitting Britain. By the late 1960s the United States was deep into development of a true anti-ballistic missile. The concept behind the early defense systems was to launch a missile carrying a hydrogen bomb that would explode in the vicinity of an incoming missile, and the X-ray emissions from the explosion would destroy it. There were technical issues that made it impractical to use the system on a large scale. But it triggered a massive response by the Soviet Union, which not only developed its own anti-ballistic missile system but also began a huge missile buildup. This lead to an Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and ultimately a cap on the number of nuclear weapons. The ABM treaty allowed for one anti-ballistic missile site in each country. The Soviets chose to protect Moscow, the United States chose to protect a missile field in Grand Forks, N.D. Deploying the current ground-based national missile defense system, the Bush administration had to abandon the ABM treaty. Fielding a defense system this year was part of President George Bush's campaign in 2000. To remind workers at the Missile Defense Agency offices at Vandenberg, President Bush's pledge is posted on the walls. The military estimates it will cost another $50 billion over the next five years. Estimates for the total cost of a robust missile defense system built over the next few decades range widely but would likely total hundreds of billions of dollars. Ultimately, some military planners want to have hundreds of missile interceptors, air- and space-based lasers as well as an array of space-, sea- and land-based radars for detecting hostile launches, tracking incoming missiles and establishing an overlapping "layered defense" that could knock down ICBMs fired at the country. Hectic Schedule On a windswept grassy plain at the north end of Vandenberg Air Force Base, teams of electricians and speciality building contractors are hastily hanging security fences, installing surveillance cameras and rewiring four Minuteman missile silos. The accelerated missile-silo-makeover will ensure that by the end of September, instead of housing intercontinental ballistic missiles, the launch field will be ready with four interceptors. An even greater construction effort finished up last weekend in Alaska. Workers there spent months digging six new 70-foot-deep silos, poured about 35,000 cubic yards of concrete and hung four miles of security fences. In a few weeks, a single interceptor missile, topped with a "kill vehicle," will be place in one silo in Alaska -- ready, theoretically, to knock out an attacking missile 140 mile above the earth in the vacuum of space. Not far from the missile field that will house the four interceptors at Vandenberg is the huge hangar-like structure where the missile interceptors are assembled. The interceptor boosters that will carry the kill vehicle are packed with solid oxygen and powdered metals designed to burn in the zero oxygen of space. Since the beginning of this year, the workers have had a hectic schedule, assembling a booster every 30 days, a process that typically takes 6 months. Along with building the interceptors that will be placed in Alaska and at Vandenberg, the workers are also putting together the missiles and interceptors that will be used to test the system in the coming months and years. Each of the 60-ton boosters will be hoisted on a "strongback" -- a sort of tractor trailer used to transport the missiles -- and then taken to the seldom-used Vandenberg airport, where they will be flown either to the Marshall Islands or Alaska. The work at Vandenberg and the construction on the missile silos at the north side of the base is the most obvious sign that something new is happening there. Deployment of four of the 10 interceptors in the nation's first missile defense shield holds a great significance for some. "This was Ronald Reagan's vision," said Maj. Latham. "You know, maybe I could meet him in heaven one day and tell him, 'You provided the vision, sir, and I helped build it at Vandenberg.' " HOW MUCH IT COSTS
*Listed in the current budget but not yet signed by President Bush. ON THE WEB Missile Defense Agency
|
|
|
