Even before the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush took office
it was clear that a considerable portion of their national security agenda would
emphasize the missile threat, and consequently the need for a missile defense
system. But lost in all the political debate has been a key question: what
kind of missile?
Ever since President Ronald Reagan unveiled his Strategic Defense Initiative
in 1983, the assumption has always been that the United States will be threatened
by ballistic missiles. But that threat is overstated. When it comes to likely
dangers, it should be remembered that bad things could come in small packages;
namely cruise missiles.
The latest evidence is a recent RAND study that warns that the U.S. Army should
invest more money in developing better defenses against cruise missiles, which
will pose a greater threat than ballistic missiles.
In a report prepared for the commander of the Army Air Defense Artillery Center
at Fort Bliss, Texas, RAND researchers said: “One conclusion we draw from our
analysis is that the threat of cruise missile attack, and the need to defend
against it, is present in all futures and scenarios.”
It is not hard to figure out the threat such missiles pose. Because the military's
air defense systems are not good at recognizing such threats, simple and unsophisticated
cruise missiles pose a unique challenge.
They are an obvious system for conducting precision strikes. They can fly
at low altitudes to stay below radar and, in some cases, hide behind terrain
features. Cruise missiles are smaller and therefore much less visible to radar
than aircraft or ballistic missiles. For example, due to the Earth’s curvature,
a ground-based radar can detect a low flying cruise missile that is about 20
miles away. In comparison, an aircraft flying at 10,000 feet can be detected
when it is about 150 miles away.
Compared with ballistic missiles, cruise missiles are expected to be much more
accurate (by a factor of at least 10), less costly (by at least half) and, because
of their aerodynamic stability, substantially more effective in delivering chemical
or biological payloads (conservatively, enlarging the lethal area for biological
attacks by at least 10 times).
It is worth noting that the Germans developed V-1 cruise missiles as a backup
to the V-2 ballistic missile program during World War II. They developed the
V-1 cruise missile in one-tenth the time that it took to develop the ballistic
missile at one-hundredth of the total program cost, with each missile costing
about one-tenth of a V-2 ballistic missile’s costs.
Accordingly, the Germans used seven times as many V-1s as V-2s. Targeting
London, V-1s caused twice as many casualties as V-2s in spite of their high
vulnerability to the RAF, which shut down three-quarters of them because of
the predictable flight path of the crude V-1 cruise missiles.
Currently, more than 80,000 cruise missiles comprised of 75 different systems
are deployed in at least 81 countries. Roughly 90 percent of the existing missiles
are short-range systems, having a range of about 100 km. or less. That is not
as reassuring as it used to be, as even a ship-launched 100 km. missile, fired
from outside U.S. territorial waters, could still reach the homeland.
As for the future, 42 new systems are reported to be in development. And 9
to 10 nations will soon be deploying land-attack cruise missiles with ranges
spanning 100 to 1,000 km.
It is unclear how rapidly cruise missiles will spread from state to sub-state
actors, i.e., terrorist groups. To date, no terrorist group has used a cruise
missile. But after Sept. 11 it is certainly conceivable that they may obtain
one from a state sponsor, or even build one on their own. As the relevant technology
is widely available, it is possible that short or even long-range missiles could
spread to new actors. Much of what goes into a cruise missile or an Unmanned
Aerial Vehicle (UAV), i.e., GPS guidance, digital flight management systems
and composite materials – are dual-use or completely civilian.
Newer missiles are incorporating stealth features to make them even less visible
to radar and infrared detectors. Multiple missiles could attack instantaneously
from different directions, and can fly circuitous routes to get to different
targets.
At a recent congressional hearing, Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, chairman of
the Senate Governmental Affairs' Subcommittee on International Security, Proliferation
and Federal Services, said the United States must act quickly to prevent unfriendly
nations and terrorist groups from acquiring land-attack cruise missiles and
UAVs.
He urged the Bush administration to appeal to the other 32 members of the Missile
Technology Control Regime (MTCR), which regulates missile exports, to stick
to the treaty's guidelines and to lead an international debate about limiting
the proliferation of UAVs.
Akaka's hearing followed a letter sent on June 5 by the leaders of the House
International Relations and Senate Foreign Relations committees to Secretary
of State Colin Powell, urging him to restrict exports of Predator and Global
Hawk unmanned aircraft to Australia, New Zealand, Japan and NATO countries.
Akaka expressed concern that the administration has asked the maker of the RQ-1
Predator – General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. of San Diego – to build
a version of the UAV for export to non-NATO members. Company officials declined
to comment. Predator is a small, medium-range UAV used primarily for observation,
but some have been armed with Hellfire missiles and used in combat in Afghanistan.
While no system is impenetrable, defense is possible. In an article in the
Spring 2002 issue of The National Interest, Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings
Institution advocated a system of radar, perhaps held up by aerostat balloons,
together with the existing network of U.S.-based fighter aircraft and a new
series of surface-to-air missile sites, which could provide at least some coverage
to all of the nation’s borders. That network might not provide leak-proof defense
in all cases, but it could stop most small attacks with high confidence and
deny any attacker certainty that his cruise missiles would reach U.S. territory
once fired.
Other measures that could be taken include the U.S. government moving to strengthen
the MTCR, an existing voluntary multilateral arrangement, by urging members
to: create a uniform set of ground rules for determining the range and payload
of cruise missiles and UAVs that might be used to deliver nuclear, biological
or chemical payloads; broaden current parameters governing controls on jet engines;
and re-examining its own export policies regarding cruise missile and UAV related
technologies. The United States recently tried to waive UAV/missile restrictions
under MTCR for UAV exports and for the Israeli Arrow missile defense program.
Sources
Army Air and Missile Defense: Future Challenges, http://www.rand.org/publications/DB/DB335/
“Cruise Control: A Case for Missile Defense,” The National Interest http://www.nationalinterest.org/issues/67/OHanlon.html
Assessing the Cruise Missile Puzzle: How great a defense challenge,
Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, http://www.ifpa.org/pubs/cruisemis_bott.htm
Cruise Missile Defense: Progress Made but Significant Challenges Remain, U.S. General Accounting Office, March 1999, NSIAD-99-68, http://www.gao.gov
David Tanks, Assessing the Cruise Missile Puzzle: How
great a defense challenge, Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, October
2000, p. 3.
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