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U.S. Missile Defense Program Will Not Work
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U.S. Missile Defense Program Will Not Work
In the realm of weapons of mass destruction, there is no such thing as a successful countermeasure
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by Bruno Tilgner
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Against international protest and defying the odds of being able to "shoot a bullet with a bullet," at 11:09 p.m. on Saturday, July 14, at 230 kilometers above the Earth a "kill vehicle" successfully connected with a modified Minuteman II ICBM obliterating its target.
For the U.S. National Missile Defense (NMD) program, this was only the second time a successful hit had been recorded over the last four tests, giving the fledgling system a success rate of 50 per cent. Yet despite such a dubious history, the Bush administration has asked Congress for $8.3 billion for missile defense research and development in 2002.
This should not come as a surprise to anyone. This is because the U.S. government has a history of not only going against popular opinion in the defense of its arms development programs, but of going against common sense itself. Not to be deterred by statistics or results, it has the ability to make even the most unsuccessful products look like the most outstanding successes.
A perfect example can be seen in the old scandal surrounding the Bradley M-2 Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV) that had a habit of catching fire during the fire safety test stage of its development. When confronted by such a problem, rather than re-engineer the vehicle, the Pentagon rose to the challenge by finding a way to pass the M-2 by packing it with numerous cans of water. With such a solution in place, the M-2 passed its flammability test with flying colors to become the beloved mainline armored troop transport used by the U.S. Army today.
More recently the U.S. has had to seriously take into account its experimental squadron of V-22 Ospreys (a hybrid of prop-engine aircraft and helicopter), scheduled to replace the U.S. Marine Corp's existing helicopter troop transports. Despite the squadron being listed as "mission capable" in December, 2000, one week before the Pentagon was expected to approve a $30 billion contract to buy 360 Ospreys, the Marine Corps grounded all of the tilt-rotor aircraft after a crash in North Carolina killed four Marines. What is remarkable was that the program would have gone ahead even after a crash in April of the same year had killed 19 marines. Despite allegations of hydraulic and flight control failure, it was not until a tape was leaked to the press in which the squadron commander was recorded ordering his technical staff to falsify data during the wake of the December crash that the program was finally put on hold pending a "review".
Getting back to missile defense, the NMD system has so far proven that it can take out a single warhead on a pre-known trajectory. Despite the fact it helps to be able to shoot down a "bullet" when you know when and where the gun is to be fired (and in which direction), this test result overlooks the obvious fact that many ICBMs and SLBMs now employed by countries such as Russia and China not only carry multiple warheads capable of independent maneuvering before re-entry but that they also carry several decoys. The R-39 SLBM, which was carried aboard the Russian "Typhoon" class submarine, was only one such example of this technology allowing the missile to shower its target with multiple high-yield warheads with a minimum of flight time.
However, let us suppose for a moment that eventually the NMD system does become reliable by the standards that the Pentagon has shown. Even if it were to be able to counter these delivery systems, it must be taken into account that building a system like this will take an incredible amount of time — far longer than the Bush administration will remain in the White House even if it were to be re-elected. Delays of this magnitude have proven themselves to be quite common in U.S. weapons development
For example in the early 1960s, the U.S. military began plans to build a new surface-to-air-missile (SAM). By 1965, this project was designated the SAM-D. Its only mandate at that time was to provide a mobile SAM system designed to protect army units from enemy aircraft. As the project progressed and the development engineers continued to add new technology to the system, it was decided by the 1970s that the SAM-D should also have the capability to shoot down incoming missiles as well. At this point the system had grown to such a size and complexity that it was in danger of losing its mobile capability.
In fact, it was not until 1985 that the SAM-D finally reached a stage in development where it could be deployed under battlefield conditions. More than 20 years after the project began, the SAM-D was renamed the Patriot System. After the Gulf War in 1991, it was proven that the system's ability to intercept incoming SCUDs was deplorable at best. Yet despite the production and development delays spanning two decades and the poor success rate during the Gulf War, in 1996 the U.S. Army planned to spend $9.6 billion for all planned purchases of Patriot missiles, $490 million for modifications and $335 million for improvements to a system that had repeatedly proven itself to be of questionable capability.
If one were to look at the complexity surrounding the NMD system, it is obvious that delays could quite easily last into the decades before a serious deployment phase could be reached. Ironically enough, the missile systems that exist today that NMD would be designed to counter would, by the time of deployment, most likely be no longer in use as they would have been rendered obsolete, given the short shelf life of most nuclear launch systems.
But, perhaps, the strongest argument against NMD has been the most obvious. Despite the fact that National Missile Defense would only be of limited use in stopping a strategic barrage of incoming ICBMs, any "rogue" state that would truly wish to hit the continental U.S. with a limited nuclear strike could use a variety of other means to deliver a nuclear weapon, from the launching of long-range cruise missiles to the sailing of a tanker into New York harbor. This does not even begin to cover the number of methods that could technically be used to deliver biological or chemical agents, which have proven themselves to be almost equally lethal in the long run and a great deal more difficult to detect.
In the end, in the modern realm of weapons of mass destruction, it must be realized that there is no such thing as a successful countermeasure. The only true tested way to stop a nuclear attack is to make sure it never begins.
Bruno Tilgner is a former member of the Canadian Forces Reserves and former policy adviser (weapons of mass destruction) for the Department of Foreign Affairs.
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