U.S. Conventional Prompt Global Strike Issues for 2008 and Beyond (2008) / Chapter Skim
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2 Military Issues
2 Military Issues
Pages 27-60
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From page 27... ...
The DOD has expressed its preferred answers, but the Committee on Conventional Prompt Global Strike Capability was asked for an independent assessment. How Should "Global" Be Defined?
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From page 28... ...
response" Tw Ts Ta Te T0 Strategic Forces alerted; Execution Time of effect warning; final planning ordered preparations begins begin Execution time FIGURE 2-1 Time line for a case in which execution follows a substantial period of warning, contingent decision, and preparation, with the final decision made quickly. NOTE: Ts -- time of strategic warning; Ta -- time at which forces are alerted; Tw -- time of actionable warning; Te -- time of execution order; T0 -- time of effect.
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From page 29... ...
Consider first the solid contour marked "A." This contour indicates that tactical aircraft or cruise missiles are usable for global strike in situations that permit execution times greater than a few hours and which involve targets that may be hard, and may even be buried, but that are not large-area deeply buried targets. This is the region below and to the right of contour A
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From page 30... ...
color Suppose that the mission in question requires shorter execution times. Instantaneous would be ideal, but according to Figure 2-2, the only feasible region is for relatively simple targets and times on the order of 1 hour or more; that is, the dotted contour marked "C." The only weapon systems being contemplated for this region of the capability space for global strike are ballistic missiles and hypersonic cruise missiles. n special circumstances, any of the contours could move leftward somewhat.
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From page 31... ...
hether a CPGS capability could actually be employed in the various scenarios would depend W on contextual details, such as the strategic environment and political circumstances and, of course, on whether the capabilities ascribed to the CPGS options are successfully achieved and supported by enablers such as described later in this chapter and in Chapter 4. Many aspects of the event are described in Richard A
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From page 32... ...
History is again useful. The very earliest part of the military campaign against Iraq in 1991 was a small, specialized, and focused attack on Iraqi air defenses.
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From page 33... ...
, although it could be quite expensive if the less-expensive CPGS options are ruled out for one reason or another. Conclusions on Definitions That Make Sense In summary, the committee concluded that defining conventional prompt global strike should not be too stringent with respect to the "global" criterion, but that the 1-hour criterion in defining "prompt" was sensible.
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From page 34... ...
Relevant prompt global strike Target classes (e.g., soft point targets, hard point targets) targets Lethality of weapons The probability of achieving the target damage sought, assuming successful delivery Ability to attack moving targets Ability to attack targets that are on the move when attacked Volume of fire The number of weapons available for use in a given strike Controllability Safety and security with respect to the weapons and their employment Geographic coverage The targets that can be reached without repositioning, e.g., without substantial sailing time or rebasing of bombers Risk of operational side effects The likelihood or potential for negative effects on, e.g., nuclear deterrent or Special Operations Forces operations At-the-time strategic factors Need or non-need for overflight rights, allied cooperation, or forward basing Availability Earliest initial operational capability Development risk The likelihood of serious development failures or slippages; a function of the technical readiness level of components, full-system testing, industrial base, and organizational competence Confidence in high reliability Assuming "successful development," how likely would the system be to have high reliabilities (e.g., 0.95 rather than 0.6)
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From page 35... ...
receiver, and a modest maneuvering capability to strike precisely at GPS A 2005 National Research Council report entitled Effects of Nuclear Earth-Penetrator and Other Weapons concluded, among other things, that many strategic hard and deeply buried targets can only be attacked directly with nuclear weapons. See National Research Council, 2005, Effects of Nuclear Earth-Penetrator and Other Weapons, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C.
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From page 36... ...
4. Submarine-Launched Global Strike Missile (SLGSM)
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From page 37... ...
or launched from long-range aircraft. Such hypersonic cruise missiles would have only medium range but would have considerable capability for terminal-phase dispensing of smart munitions and ISR modules, and if slowed to subsonic speeds, could execute a search to reacquire and strike moving targets.
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From page 38... ...
(CSM-2) Missiles Execution time Positioning/final planning time Geographic coverage Defense penetration Lethality Ability to attack moving targets Volume of fire Assessment and reattack Controllability
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indicates a result of averaging good and bad cases. Very Good Marginal/ Poor Very Poor Good Mixed NOTE: A black warning marker indicates a result of averaging good and bad cases, for example, cases with and without advanced air defenses.
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From page 40... ...
Acronyms are defined in Appendix A In Table 2-2, the color coding indicates the committee's assessment of options as "very good," "good," "marginal/mixed," "poor," and "very poor" (or equivalents, such as a very high development risk or late initial operational capability [IOC]
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From page 41... ...
Further, final mission planning can take considerable time, especially for working out paths of flight to avoid or defeat air defenses. This would more likely afflict existing systems or hypersonic cruise missiles than it would affect dedicated CPGS systems. These options, therefore, are marked down slightly because they depend on special circumstances.
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From page 42... ...
and hypersonic cruise missiles must slow down substantially, either to dispense munitions, to conduct ISR activities, or to assess and reattack. That would increase their vulnerability to air defenses.
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, for CSM-2 (the second version of the boost-glide missile) , and for the hypersonic cruise missiles, although achieving those capabilities entails high development risk and long development times.
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. It is the committee's judgment that the number of available nuclear weapons could be maintained by increasing the number of warheads on those missiles with nuclear weapons, but there would still be concern about having concentrated the on-alert nuclear submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs)
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From page 45... ...
Accordingly, the committee's estimate of the earliest IOC of each of these boost-glide missile and hypersonic cruise-missile systems is 15 This criterion should not be misinterpreted. Forward basing and other access arrangements are desirable and important for many strategic reasons that would not be affected by the existence of CPGS capability.
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From page 46... ...
It may be that reliabilities would be high from the outset, at least for the boost-glide missile (initial version) , but risks for the CSM-2 and hypersonic cruise-missile options would have to be judged to be considerable.
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From page 47... ...
Discussion of Evaluation in Test Cases The test cases are formulated specifically for the purpose of evaluating the potential of systems for CPGS in the period between 5 and 15 years from now, not for global strike generally, and not for today. Existing systems do not do well in the committee's evaluations because of not being "prompt" enough and because of worries about emerging air defenses and/or inability to attack moving targets.
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From page 48... ...
48 TABLE 2-4 Evaluation of the Conventional Prompt Global Strike (CPGS) Options in a Set of Test Cases Measures Attack Weak Points Attack Terrorists Strike C3 Nodes in Respond Fast to of Hardened WMD Fast (Leaders or Leading-Edge Investment Options Attack or Threat Facilitya WMD)
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From page 49... ...
any of the more strategic hard and deeply buried targets are beyond the reach of conventional explosive penetrating weapons and can be held at risk of destruction only with nuclear weapons" (p.
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The CSM-2 (with UAV) and hypersonic cruise missiles would have movingtarget capability, but, depending on load and possible maneuvers, might or might not be able to cope with advanced air defenses.
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From page 51... ...
The material that follows touches on such enablers, including the challenge of ensuring that aimpoints are properly geolocated. Challenges for Enablers The use of long-range missiles to deliver conventional weapons accurately enough to damage targets requires information that is significantly more difficult to provide than that needed for nuclear weapons or for conventional weapons delivered by aircraft or short-range missiles.
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From page 52... ...
Several studies have shown that bias errors will be troublesome in some cases for the CPGS systems.18 Given the limited payloads and small radius of effects for conventional weapons, there is little room for error in any of the three dimensions. These CPGS systems will require GPS updates to correct inertial guidance systems toward the end of flight and perhaps will need to include additional systems to correct for bias errors (a capability not available for early systems)
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From page 53... ...
Any error in the actual location of the target (target location error, or TLE) , including bias errors, needs to be significantly smaller than the weapon's range of effects, which means that TLE needs again to be on the order of a few meters.
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From page 54... ...
For other potential target locations that have a time-dependent value, such as a pier that is a valuable target when it has WMD cargo ready to load but not when it is empty, the detection of the 20 Congressional funding for development of the Space Based Radar Program has been limited over the past few years. For an overview of the program, see General Accounting Office, 2004, Defense Acquisitions: Space-Based Radar Effort Needs Additional Knowledge Before Starting Development, GAO-04-759, Washington, D.C.
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From page 55... ...
As the world was reminded recently when nuclear-armed missiles were accidentally loaded onto a B-52, transported to another air base, and essentially left unattended for many hours, mistakes can happen -- even with the nuclear weapons to which the United States has applied special precautions for decades.21 21 n I response to the incident of unauthorized movement of nuclear warheads from Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota, to Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates authorized an independent investigation of the incident resulting in the following report: Defense Science Board, 2008, Report on the Unauthorized Movement of Nuclear Weapons, Permanent Task Force on Nuclear Weapons Surety, Washington, D.C. For additional reading, see Joby Warrick and Walter Pincus, 2007, "Missteps in the Bunker," Washington Post, September 23.
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From page 56... ...
The events that led to the recent incident involving the unintended transport of nuclear weapons on a B-52, followed by many hours during which the missiles sat unattended on the airplane at Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota, and Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, included the errors made by support personnel in mistaking nuclear weapons for unarmed missiles to be destroyed (despite distinctive markings) and the failure of a series of support personnel and flight-crew members to fully check what weapons were being hung on a B-52 for transport and what weapons were on an arriving B-52.
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From page 57... ...
That the B-52 incident represents an "unimaginable" lapse in the handling of nuclear weapons does not mean that all systems for handling, controlling, and using nuclear weapons (or strategic conventional weapons) are equally likely to have such mishaps.
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From page 58... ...
However, owing to the magnitude of the consequence of an accidental launch and the small amount of time that commanders in the field might sometimes have in prompt global strike engagements, the committee recommends the following: in addition to the risk mitigation measures proposed by SSP, OSD should appoint a red team to review thoroughly SSP's plans, searching specifically for ways in which, perhaps due to a series of concurrent failures, an accidental launch of a
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From page 59... ...
The technical means for ensuring the nuclear safety of a CTM system ensure that the risk of an accidental launch of a nuclear weapon in a CTM engagement can be made very low. For the reasons explained in Chapter 3, the committee believes that it is highly unlikely that a launch of a conventionally armed Trident would be misinterpreted as a nuclear attack; that the chances that such a launch would trigger an immediate nuclear response is very low and could be reduced even further by means of established cooperative measures; and that the "ambiguity" issue is not a reason to forgo the capability that CTM would afford.
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From page 60... ...
Congress should require that all CPGS options be developed with concepts of operations meeting very high, strategic, levels of safety and security -- comparable to or better than the concept for the CTM, and planning for accomplishing this should include a review of command-and-control software, not just of weapon system issues, as well as rigorous red teaming to detect problems; (2) OSD should appoint a red team to thoroughly review the Navy's plans, searching specifically for ways in which, perhaps due to a series of concurrent failures, an accidental launch of a nuclear weapon might occur in an intended CTM engagement; (3)
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