Post-Cold War Conflict Deterrence (1997) / Chapter Skim
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Appendix H: Theater Missile Defense, National ABM Systems, and the future of Deterrence
Appendix H: Theater Missile Defense, National ABM Systems, and the future of Deterrence
Pages 182-200
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From page 182... ...
And had the Soviet Union been able to field an "effective" ABM, the United States would have responded by expanding its missile force to overwhelm the defense, enhancing the force with penetration aids to defeat the defense, or underflying or bypassing the defense with cruise missiles, bombers, or other nonballistic missiles. Of course, a truly dominant defense that could not be overcome, underflown, or otherwise bypassed would be another matter entirely.
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From page 183... ...
BACKGROUND This essay is informed by the author's involvement with strategic offensive and defensive forces since 1952 and with every successive generation of proposal or deployment of ballistic missile defenses. Indeed, the revolution in microelectronics, radio frequency technology, and signal processing has wrought a revolution in the reliability and effectiveness of radar detection of objects in space or in the atmosphere, and this has been augmented by major advances in optical detection capability both in the visible and the infrared (IR)
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From page 184... ...
These techniques have been explored quite thoroughly by the United States for strategic missiles, and some of them for aircraft, but it is not clear how well perfected they are for short-range or tactical ballistic missiles. In addition to the pure BMD systems, initially derived in any case from the army surface-to-air missile systems (SAMs)
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From page 185... ...
But a much more powerful penetration aid is to be found in the technique of "antisimulation" in which the warheads themselves are given a broad spectrum of observables, in order to make them easier to mimic by inexpensive decoys. Of course one could imagine an adversary with sufficient blindness and specific limitations in technology to be able to buy or make ballistic missiles and their warheads, but with a peculiar inability to make these penetration aids.
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From page 186... ...
And they would have worked for that limited purpose. In fact, the Ballistic Missile Defense Office (BMDO-successor to the Strategic Defense Initiative Office tSDIO]
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From page 187... ...
Army must have believed this, and once the words are out of the mouth of the President, there is a substantial establishment devoted to establishing their truth or reality, as was the case following the announcement of the Strategic Defense Initiative by President Ronald Reagan on March 23, 1983. Over the years since January 1991, I have discussed Patriot performance with several diplomats and military officers of friendly countries and have learned that they overwhelmingly believe that Patriot did not conduct successful intercepts, but that it was a "political response to a political weapon" and in this regard was "very successful." And one can hardly disregard historical facts presented, for instance, by Alexander H
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From page 188... ...
Indeed, the early release of submunitions totally counters the performance of nonnuclear TMD systems thus far proposed, except those that involve fastacceleration interceptor missiles launched from close to the ballistic missile launch site so as to be able to destroy the missile during powered flight. This could be achieved by ground-emplaced interceptors (GEIs)
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From page 189... ...
As for an all-up system "proof test," that would not be available even for incoming RVs of a full 7 km/s reentry speed, unless those RVs were supplied for test by the adversary! s Because Russia is more threatened by accidental launch and intermediaterange missiles launched from its neighbors Wan is the United States, a decision by the United States to proceed win such a system would result In a comparable system in Russia, which would then cause havoc with the assured penetration of strategic ballistic missiles launched from British, French, or Chinese forces, unless those forces were modified or greatly augmented.
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From page 190... ...
Such retribution would be all the more legitimate if the United States and the other nuclear states emphasized their commitment not to use nuclear weapons first, so that this postulated use of nuclear weapons would damage the entire international security system, as well as the specific target of the nuclear attack. The Threat to the United States That there are serious objective dangers to the United States is indisputable.
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From page 191... ...
The large force of more than 10,000 strategic nuclear warheads on each side appears to have grown to that level not because that many were deemed essential for the assured destruction role, but because a large fraction of the strategic warheads might be destroyed before they could be launched in retaliation, and an additional factor entered to compensate for some ABM system that might be built before the force could be further expanded. In addition, there was still a residue of the 1962 McNamara mission of "damage limitation" by which nuclear warheads beyond those required for assured destruction would be used to destroy the strategic offensive force of the other side.
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From page 192... ...
They tend to believe in national security on a unilateral basis, as reflected in the 1980 presidential campaign literature of Governor Ronald Reagan, which stated that President Ronald Reagan would have a three-point program to build nuclear weapons to disarm the Soviet Union, and if the Soviets tried to respond, it would be so costly that they would destroy themselves economically. Russia is now in substantially more dire economic straits than was the Soviet Union, and the appeal of this program may be substantially larger to a small but influential minority in the United States.
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From page 193... ...
And the U.S. Navy has recently discovered a substantial capability of a fleet of vessels against cruise missile or even theater ballistic missile attack, by taking seriously the integration of sensors on the various ships.
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From page 194... ...
and Russian strategic nuclear warheads by two-thirds from Cold War levels. The missile defense provisions would also jeopardize our current efforts to agree on an ABM/TMD (Theater Missile Defense)
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From page 195... ...
There would be no reason in the 1990s for Russia to use the co-orbital ASAT that the Soviet Union tested some 22 times and that was described, for instance, in our article in Scientific American.l° Instead, Russia would surely use a directascent ASAT, equipped with either a small nuclear warhead or a pellet warhead to destroy the rather fragile SBL, without imposing the requirement of sufficient accuracy to destroy by kinetic energy collision of the ASAT homing head itself. SDI proponents formerly argued that He deployed constellation of SBL would be mutually protecting, but such systems are not operational as soon as they are put into orbit, and the exchange ratio between the cost of an SBL and the cost of a direct-ascent ASAT is surely such that no such weapons in space could survive.
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From page 196... ...
So although it had long been considered to use pellet warheads or for that matter orbiting pellet clouds to destroy objects in space, the public relations associated with the advocacy of SDI called now for "smart rocks"-as if one would be using a simple rock, but "smart" enough to be guided to a collision with the target. Some went one step farther, claiming to increase the intelligence by making the rocks "brilliant" and reducing the size by the miracle of modern consumer electronics so that these were no longer smart rocks but "Brilliant Pebbles." Instead of a few kilograms as was originally proposed, the mass in orbit grew to on the order of 100 kg, for which one can make quite a reasonable interceptor, in principle.
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From page 197... ...
, nor do I understand why an "optical probe" launched from the terminal area on detection of a ballistic missile launch would not be a better idea than a Brilliant Eye. I note, however, that Edward Teller proposed in the SDIO era that Brilliant Eyes should have all of the capabilities of Brilliant Pebbles, including rocket engines and homing systems that could boost the interceptor and conduct an intercept, but they would be deployed without the fuel and so would be "legal" under the ABM treaty.
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From page 198... ...
Each sensor would have its own cryptographic key (or a "public-key" system could be used) so that it would continually encrypt the time and the serial number of the sensor, so long as it remained attached to an unmoved silo cover.~4 High Russian officials explain that (like the Soviet rocket forces before them)
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From page 199... ...
Thus, the United States should go ahead with dual-capable (aircraft, cruise missiles, and theater ballistic missiles) systems such as the PAC-3 upgrade of the Patriot, with remote firing of such interceptors from displaced radars and should rely for system performance on "launch-point cueing." In general, there should be increased emphasis on passive defense against CW and BW and on a balanced defense against all threats.
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From page 200... ...
POST-COED WAR CONFEICT DETERRENCE ...................................................................................................................................................... confuse the wish for effective defense and the capability for effective defense, which confusion can jeopardize the uneasy security provided by deterrence against major potential threats.
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