The Center for Defense Information
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| January 21, 1999 |
| January 21, 1999 |
CORRECTION: In last week's Weekly Defense Monitor article, "Ban on Child Soldiers Delayed Again," the number of US high school girls and boys participating in JROTC programs was incorrectly reported due to a typograpical error. The number should read 400,000. CDI regrets any confusion this may have caused.
Non-Flying Missiles Still Mean High Flying Costs
Colonel Daniel Smith, USA (Ret.), Chief of Research, Center for Defense Information
dsmith@cdi.org
It's been rough going in the first weeks of 1999 for the Ballistic Missile Defense Office, and it might get worse before it gets better.
First was the admission by General Hugh Shelton, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that progress on developing a National Missile Defense (NMD) system will be insufficient to warrant deployment starting in 2000. Under the Administration's "3+3" plan, a decision on deploying NMD must be made in late Spring or early summer 2000 to meet the 2003 target date to have a system in place. But according to General Shelton, the lack of success so far -- and with no breakthroughs on the horizon -- translates into a no-go decision in 2000. "It's not a matter of money," said the Chairman, "It's the technology challenge."
This assessment was then confirmed by Secretary of Defense William Cohen in mid-January. While affirming that the Administration would go ahead with deployment even if the Russians would not agree to modify the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, Mr. Cohen said that the deployment target date would probably slip by two years.
Then, almost as fast as a speeding bullet (also known as the proposed kinetic kill vehicle for NMD) came the bad news that the Pentagon's cost estimates for the NMD program were some $3 billion too low. The trade publication, Defense Week, reported that the Pentagon's latest forecast is $13 billion, not the $10 billion figure that Administration officials used after the White House leaked news that the President's FY2000 budget would call for an additional $7 billion for NMD over the next six years. And this $13 billion does not include the more than $1.1 billion spent in the early Clinton Administration before the Pentagon changed its accounting baseline for NMD to FY1997. Moreover, this sum entirely excludes money committed to all the earlier missile defense programs, particularly in the Reagan-Bush era, which in themselves add $50 billion to total missile defense system costs.
Army Theater Missile Defense (TMD) programs also took some blows in early 1999. Development costs for the PAC-3 (Patriot Advanced Capability -3) missile reportedly now stand at $760 million, which is $126 million over contract and an increase since June 1998 of $20 million -- which the Pentagon and the taxpayer, not the contractor, will pay. Yet Lieutenant General Lester Lyles, who heads BMDO, attributes over two-thirds of the cost increase to "management inefficiencies and design problems."
As the program stands now, instead of buying 1,200 PAC-3 missiles for about $2 million each, the Army projects a buy of 560 missiles. This raises the per-missile cost to around $4 million. And that assumes that the program will not slip further behind schedule and add even more to its cost. The contractor must successfully accomplish two intercepts, a congressional requirement, before an initial production contract can be signed. The testing program is already a year behind schedule, and there is no assurance that the programmed March 1999 test will materialize.
Then there is THAAD -- Theater High Altitude Air Defense system -- whose very acronym has become a synonym for failure. The scheduled February 1999 test, the sixth, has now been put off until at least March, reportedly because of problems with the target missile. Although THAAD has yet to really test the technology of hit-to-kill because the five failures have occurred well before any chance of an intercept (e.g., THAAD missile or target missile failure), this latest delay may actually mark the end of separate Army and Navy high altitude TMD programs, an idea that was floated near the end of 1998.
Finally, the Air Force SBIRS -- Space Based Infrared System -- satellite constellations designed for early (in the lift-off phase) detection of missile launches and mid-course tracking face two year delays. The initial launch of the high altitude, six satellite system that would provide early detection will now not occur prior to 2004 while the first demonstrator for the 24 satellite low orbit tracking array will not lift off until next year, two years late. Even if that launch is successful, the Air Force now says it cannot meet the revised program schedule of 2004 and will aim for 2006 -- four years behind what many in Congress wanted.
All this simply reinforces the conclusion of the 1998 DoD initiated Panel on Reducing Risk in Ballistic Missile Defense Flight Test Programs: "The virtually universal experience of the study group members has been that high technical risk is not likely to accelerate fielded capability. It is far more likely to cause program slips, increased costs, and even program failures."
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Weapons Collection Program in Albania To Begin With U.N. Support
Rachel Stohl, Research Analyst, Center for Defense Information
rstohl@cdi.org
Recent news reports have highlighted atrocities in Kosovo and the wider Balkan region. However, good news is also coming out of this heavily militarized and war-torn area of the world. Albania, a country paralyzed by political and economic instability and riddled with an abundance of weapons, is taking steps to de-weaponize.
In February 1998 Albania sent a letter to the United Nations Secretary-General asking for a U.N. expert to determine the feasibility of and advise on how to create a weapons collection program targeted at civilians. The Albanian Government was desperate for help. Since the spring of 1997, Albania had been plagued by virtual anarchy stemming from the population's protests over the collapse of fraudulent pyramid schemes in which many lost their life savings. In their frenzy, Albanians looted approximately 1300 government weapons depots throughout the country filled with arms and ammunition. The U.N. estimated that more than 656,000 weapons, 1.5 billion rounds of ammunition, and 3.5 million hand grenades were taken from the depots by the civilian population.
Since the looting, the Albanian government estimates that only 97,000 weapons have been recovered. Some of the weapons taken, approximately 30 percent, were sold abroad to inhabitants of Kosovo, Macedonia, Greece, and other more distant nations. Officials believe that only ten percent of the weapons have fallen into criminal hands. The rest remain in the hands of the Albanian civilian population.
To aid in ridding Albania of the more than half a million weapons still in circulation, the U.N. organized a pilot program to begin January 26 in the Gramsh district of Albania, approximately 60 miles south of the capital, Tirana, with a population of 50,000. The civilian population is thought to have approximately 8-10 percent of all the weapons (about 10,000) and ammunition still in the hands of the Albanian civilian population. These factors, in addition to relative stability in the district, led officials to decide that Gramsh was a manageable and plausible area in which to conduct a pilot weapons collection program.
But U.N. officials were not eager to conduct a traditional weapons buy-back, one in which individuals turn in their weapons for cash. They felt that if they gave cash incentives to retrieve illegally acquired weapons they would be rewarding criminal behavior and could encourage people to bring in weapons acquired from abroad. Additionally, the introduction of cash into the region could have inflationary effects on an already economically strapped area.
Instead, the U.N. decided to link developmental assistance with weapons collection. After assessing the needs of the area, the U.N. promised to provide telephones and better roads to encourage turning in weapons. Once collected, the weapons would be destroyed, a step reminiscent of previous U.N. efforts in the West African country of Mali.
The U.N. has had to conduct a large public relations campaign in the region to convince locals that possession of weapons is a danger to their safety and security. According to U.N. reports, "since March 1997, 57 people, including 26 children have been killed in weapons-related accidents in Gramsh." U.N. officials have relied on teachers and other local leaders to encourage the population to turn in their weapons.
A combined effort of the U.N. Development Program (UNDP) and the U.N. Departments of Political and Disarmament Affairs, the "weapons for development" program will last until April, 1999. At that time it will be assessed to determine if it should continue. The estimated cost of the entire program is $3 million, of which UNDP has set aside $1 million and has established a trust fund for additional contributions. Italy, a with a very real interest in the program's success because of its close proximity to Albania, has already contributed generously to the collection program fund.
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Kosovo: New Year, Same Old Conflict
Tomas Valasek, Research Analyst, Center for Defense Information
tvalasek@cdi.org
NATO officials are meeting in Brussels to decide whether to launch air strikes against Serbian forces in Yugoslav province of Kosovo. The latest escalation stems from the massacre in the Kosovo village of Racak. Forty-five Albanians villagers were found dead, allegedly executed by Serbian security forces (a formal inquiry is under way). Albanians, the dominant ethnic group in Kosovo, have waged a guerilla war for independence from Yugoslavia since February 1998.
As in October of last year, NATO has begun to amass forces for a possible military strike against Serbian units in Kosovo. A fleet of destroyers and frigates from Germany, Spain, Netherlands, UK, Greece and Turkey are moving to the Adriatic Sea. Germany and Great Britain have sent attack aircraft to NATO bases in Italy. The French-led extraction force, tasked with evacuating international observers from Kosovo, has been put on alert, as have units of British special forces (the SAS) which would reinforce the French if necessary. The United States is sending the USS Enterprise battle group which, in addition to the nuclear powered aircraft carrier, includes three destroyers, two guided missile cruisers, a guided missile frigate, attack submarines and support vessels. Also on its way is the USS Nassau Amphibious Ready Group with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit on board.
Under threats of attack by NATO, Serbs and Kosovars agreed to a cease-fire and political negotiations last October. But talks about Kosovo's future status have brought no results and the cease-fire has steadily deteriorated. People on both sides are being killed daily. The Serbs have moved troops to Kosovo in violation of the cease-fire while the Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK) continues to expand and reequip its ranks as well.
Once again the threat of NATO attacks hangs in the air, but any benefits from an allied operation remain dubious. NATO forces should be used without hesitation if international observers in Kosovo come under attack. (About 700 Americans and Europeans are in Kosovo so far to monitor the October cease-fire agreement.) But using force in support of one of the sides in the Kosovo conflict would only make the situation much murkier.
NATO plans to bomb the Serbian police and military in Kosovo if the atrocities in the province continue. In the words of Secretary Albright, "force is the only language he [Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic] appears to understand." But it is unclear how the air strikes would force President Milosevic to the negotiating table, as NATO hopes. Repeated and sometimes heavy attacks on Iraq have not weaken Saddam Hussein's resolve, for instance. In Bosnia in 1995, Milosevic agreed to negotiate not only because NATO struck his forces but also because the tide was turning against him on the battlefield. Bosnian and Croatian forces, retrained and reequipped, were rapidly pushing the Serbs out of western Bosnia and Croatia. In Kosovo, on the other hand, the Serbs have an undisputed superiority on the battlefield.
Moreover, even if they materialize, negotiations may not yield success -- three months of talks since the October cease-fire brought no results. The Serbs insist that Kosovo remain a part of Yugoslavia and the Kosovars demand nothing less than independence. The United States and NATO offer a compromise -- autonomy for Kosovo -- which neither side accepts and the international community cannot enforce without substantial troops on the ground in Kosovo.
The dilemma over Kosovo's status thus precludes any meaningful military action. A deployment of air and ground troops would par down the violence. But the Kosovo Albanians would almost certainly use the cover to proclaim independence from Yugoslavia, which the United States opposes. As Secretary of Defense William Cohen said, "we don't intend to be an air force for the UCK."
NATO may in the end resort to air strikes because of the lack of better options and because, as Secretary Cohen said, "NATO's credibility remains on the line." In October the alliance approved a formal order for the attack, an order suspended only when Richard Holbrooke secured a last minute agreement. But the truce is clearly collapsing and the arrival of spring in Kosovo is widely expected to touch off a new round of fighting.
Any solution to the Kosovo crisis needs to start with the man responsible, Slobodan Milosevic and his dictatorial regime in Belgrade. It may involve a tough political decision on the status of Kosovo and by implication, other Balkan states with ethnic Albanian populations. But one thing is clear: air strikes against the Serbs in Kosovo, by themselves, will not bring this cruel conflict to an end.