1

Introduction

Ballistic missile defense (BMD) has long been both a source of hope for those who worry about vulnerabilities to threats from afar and a source of concern for those who fear that defensive systems undermine the ability to credibly respond to a nuclear attack, thereby undermining deterrence as currently understood by both the Russian Federation and the United States. Antimissile systems have made significant progress over the last three decades, and yet they have offered an elusive promise of protection against strategic threat missiles because the effectiveness of defensive systems is limited against sophisticated ballistic missiles, especially in attacks involving large numbers of such missiles. However, as ballistic missile technology proliferates, and as ballistic missile defenses are deployed by both the Russian Federation and the United States, it becomes increasingly important for these two countries to seek ways to reap the benefits of systems that can protect against intermediate- and medium-range missile attacks from third countries without undermining the strategic balance that the two governments maintain to ensure stability.

For decades, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) (before 1992, the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union) have held a robust dialogue on strategic and nuclear issues. These interactions have proven valuable to both states in allowing technically rich discussion of important issues when the time was not right for such discussions at official levels.

Most of the interaction between the two academies has been in meetings and workshops. Infrequently, however, the academies have concluded that a specific issue warranted a full, formal, joint study with a consensus report.^* After considerable discussion, in early 2015 the two academies concluded that cooperation on regional ballistic missile defense was a suitable subject for such a joint study. This conclusion was based on the importance of BMD to strategic stability, the ongoing missile defense modernization efforts in both countries, and the difficulty the two countries have had—despite multiple attempts—in establishing such cooperation. The two academies adopted the following statement of task to guide the preparation of this report:

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^* For the most recent such report, see National Research Council, 2009, Internationalization of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle: Goals, Strategies, and Challenges (Washington, DC: The National Academies Press), https://www.nap.edu/catalog/12477/internationalization-of-the-nuclear-fuel-cycle-goals-strategies-and-challenges.

The joint committees have focused particularly on regional missile defense for the purposes of this study for several reasons.^* Regional missile defenses do not have direct implications for strategic stability. Regional defenses are the main focus of U.S. deployments today, and the technology for regional defense is more mature than for defense against intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). The threats to the Russian Federation and to U.S. allies are primarily from intermediate- and medium-range missiles (although the Russian Federation also considers U.S. ICBMs a major threat^†). Cooperation on regional missile defense is conceivable because under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty), both countries committed to foregoing development and deployment of intermediate-range missiles.⁴ Further, the joint committees considered only BMD technology deployed today, or technologies that are realistic advances to current technology. It was necessary to impose those constraints on the joint committees’ analysis because much of the planned technology has proved more difficult to deploy than anticipated.

The feasibility of cooperation between countries in the field of national security is dependent on the state of their overall political relationship. The joint committees were not asked to take into account political considerations; however, they do recognize that the state of the relationship between the United States and the Russian Federation evolves over time and is not currently conducive to new technical cooperation of the type analyzed in this report. The joint committees believe, however, that there will come a time when expanded cooperation on information sharing for regional ballistic missile defense will become politically feasible. At that time, the joint committees believe the ideas set forth in this report can help improve the national security of both the United States and the Russian Federation without providing either country an advantage over the other, and therefore the ideas should be considered by both governments. The joint committees have not analyzed the indirect benefits of cooperation to improving the overall relationship, but rather have limited themselves to areas where such cooperation would directly enhance the security of both countries.^‡

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^* The joint committees officially commenced their work with an information-gathering meeting in Washington in March 2015, preceded by planning trips in Moscow, followed by committee discussions and writing meetings in Moscow and Washington from 2015 through 2018. Throughout the process, an extensive literature review was conducted in Russian and in English.

^† ICBMs are defined as missiles having a range of greater than 5,500 km.

^‡ The joint committees’ analysis excludes cooperation on battlefield systems such as the U.S. Patriot and Russian S-300 systems.

WHAT IS BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENSE?

A BMD system is an interconnected set of sensors, analytics, and countermeasures that target one or more attack missiles to prevent them from harming their intended targets. The sensors may be based on the ground, at sea, in the air, and in orbit, typically using radar or infrared detection and tracking. The analytics interpret the sensor data, identifying attack missiles and determining their position and trajectory. The countermeasures may be interceptor missiles based on the ground or in the air or directed energy beams in close proximity to the attack missiles. The countermeasures are meant to disable, disrupt, or destroy the attack missiles. The type of BMD system deployed, including sensors and countermeasures, is generally selected and designed to counter a particular type of attack missile; that is, short-range, intermediate-range, or intercontinental.

This report deals with cooperation on defenses against intermediate- and medium-range ballistic missiles only. For convenience throughout this report, the joint committees refer to such missiles as intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs). When the INF Treaty was in force, both the Russian Federation and the United States were precluded from possessing such land-based missiles.^* As a result, improving each country’s ability to defend against such missiles should have no significant impact on the strategic balance between the two states. Cooperation on defenses against intercontinental range missiles—which form a major component of the strategic deterrent of both countries—is excluded from this analysis because it would imply the equivalent of an alliance relationship. The joint committees do not believe such a relationship is likely in the foreseeable future.

U.S.-RUSSIAN TECHNICAL SECURITY COOPERATION TO DATE

In the quarter century since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the United States and the Russian Federation have cooperated effectively in many essential security areas. They have concluded three strategic arms control agreements (START II in 1993,⁵ the Treaty of Moscow in 2002,⁶ and New START in 2010,⁷ although only the latter two entered into force). They have led in implementing the Open Skies Treaty,⁸ conducting observation flights over each other’s territory to reduce mutual suspicions. They have jointly provided effective leadership as co-chairs of the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism,⁹ and have cooperated effectively within the Proliferation Security Initiative.¹⁰ Despite tension between them associated with developments in Ukraine, they worked together to remove all declared chemical weapons from Syria,¹¹ and to prepare and carry into effect the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on the Iran nuclear program.¹²

U.S.-RUSSIAN BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENSE COOPERATION TO DATE

Meaningful cooperation on ballistic missile defense, however, has eluded the two countries, largely because they view such defenses in starkly different terms. The United States has deployed a limited national system (often referred to as “homeland defense”) to defend its

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^* Under the INF Treaty, “each Party shall eliminate its intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles, not have such systems thereafter….” The missiles covered are land-based missiles with range between 500 and 5,500 km.

territory against ballistic missiles from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the Islamic Republic of Iran, and is now deploying the European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA) as its contribution to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO’s) territorial defense system against Iranian threats.^* The United States withdrew from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty)¹³ in 2002 to allow for deployment of a limited system of homeland defenses against a potential ICBM attack from North Korea or Iran. Subsequently, in 2009, the Barack Obama administration decided to deploy the EPAA¹⁴ (aspects of which the joint committees refer to as “U.S. regional defense”) as part of NATO’s ballistic missile defense architecture. The Russian Federation opposes these U.S. deployments, concerned that—either now or in the future—they will threaten its strategic deterrent.^† In particular, the Russian Federation sees deployment of American ballistic missile defenses as an open-ended process and assumes that once the currently planned three phases of EPAA are completed, the United States will continue to improve and expand these defenses. These diverging viewpoints have thus far made cooperation impossible, despite several important attempts.

Since the end of the Cold War, there have been three significant and distinct phases in U.S.Russian attempts at cooperation on missile defense:

• The 1990s, when the United States was heavily focused on regional missile defense, initial steps toward cooperation were taken both in bilateral U.S.-Russian channels and through the NATO-Russia Council. The two countries agreed to create a Joint Data Exchange Center to facilitate the sharing of early warning data.¹⁵ They also discussed (but never implemented) a demarcation agreement between research and development on anti-ballistic missile systems prohibited under the 1972 ABM Treaty, and activities permitted by the treaty for the development of regional ballistic missile defense.

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^* Although the U.S. government has made no formal statement on the matter, it is continuing European deployments despite agreement with Iran on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The U.S. members of the joint committees understand the rationale to be that (1) the JCPOA places no constraints on Iranian ballistic missile development, and Iran continues to develop them in violation of other United Nations Security Council resolutions; (2) although Iran has thus far demonstrated compliance with the JCPOA, its past behavior makes it difficult to be confident of its future compliance; (3) the 1-year breakout period that is the goal of the JCPOA is significantly shorter than the time needed to complete deployment of ballistic missile defense if the current U.S. program is interrupted; and (4) Iran has stated its intention to return to a peaceful, full-scope nuclear program when the JCPOA ends, resulting in a latent nuclear state with much less than a 1-year breakout period. In contrast, the Russian government sees the continuation of U.S. EPAA programs as proof that they are directed against the Russian Federation.

^† For examples of the longstanding Russian skepticism on the need for U.S. missile defense against Iran and concern with the implications for Russian security, see Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Address to the Federal Assembly (The Kremlin, March 1, 2018, “Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly,” available at http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/56957, accessed on January 11, 2019); Russian President Vladimir Putin’s speech at the final plenary session of the 15th Annual Meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club (Valdai Discussion Club, October 18, 2018, “Vladimir Putin Meets with Members of the Valdai Discussion Club, Full Transcript of the Plenary Session of the 15th Annual Meeting,” available at http://valdaiclub.com/events/posts/articles/vladimir-putin-meets-with-valdai-discussion-club/?sphrase_id=539330, accessed on January 11, 2019); Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s 2007 remarks in the Financial Times (Lavrov, S., April 10, 2007, “A crucial debate on Europe’s anti-missile defences,” Financial Times, available at https://www.ft.com/content/355a3b78-e77f-11db-8098-000b5df10621, accessed on October 30, 2018); and Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev, “Russia always knew that U.S. missile defense was aimed against it and China—security chief” (Tass, June 25, 2015, available at http://tass.ru/en/russia/803923, accessed on October 30, 2018).

• In the years between 2001 and 2008 when the United States focused on defending its homeland against potential ICBM attacks from North Korea and Iran, the United States withdrew from the ABM Treaty (in 2002), and deployed at two U.S.-based sites, specifically, 26 interceptors in Fort Greely, Alaska, and 4 in Vandenberg, California. Discussions on cooperation continued, especially in the NATO-Russia Council. Six joint U.S.-Russian and two NATO-Russian command-post computer-based exercises were conducted between 1998 and 2008, along with a number of preparatory meetings. However, with the 2007 U.S. decision to create a third site for U.S. regional missile defense, which would include deployment of 10 interceptors in Poland, ballistic missile defense increasingly became a confrontational issue, with the Russian Federation strongly urging various alternatives to the planned U.S. deployment.¹⁶
• The current phase began in 2009, when the United States concluded that the threat to its homeland had not emerged as rapidly as feared, however, as stated in the Introduction, the DPRK program has developed faster than predicted. Although homeland defense remained a priority, emphasis was shifted from further improving regional missile defense for defense against U.S. territories to defending its NATO allies from the ballistic missile threat from Iran. Prior to 2009, the three “sites” of the U.S. BMD program were Fort Greeley in Alaska, Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, and a European site comprising a ground-based interceptor anti-missile system in Poland and a radar installation in the Czech Republic. In 2009, the United States cancelled the proposed “third site” and shifted to a European Phased Adaptive Approach.¹⁷ EPAA is a three-phase process (an initial fourth phase was cancelled for cost and technical reasons) built around successively improved versions of the U.S. Navy Aegis air and missile defense system and the Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) interceptor.^* Although initially based at sea, EPAA’s third phase (to be completed by 2020) now involves basing missiles ashore in Romania and Poland. Discussion between the Russian Federation and the United States on cooperation during this period focused almost entirely on possible ways to make U.S. deployments compatible with Russian concerns and grew increasingly strident and unproductive.

In an effort to break the impasse, the Euro-Atlantic Security Initiative (a group of high-level former officials from the Russian Federation, the United States, and European NATO countries) commissioned a study on a cooperative European ballistic missile defense architecture.¹⁸ This effort failed to gain traction in either country for political reasons, despite the technical sophistication of the study and the prominent experts involved. A more detailed chronology of attempts at cooperation, particularly since 2001, can be found in Appendix B.^†

Some cooperative efforts succeeded for a time before being terminated. An example of cooperation particularly applicable to the work of the joint committees was the Russian-American Observation Satellites (RAMOS) program, created in 1992 as a cooperative effort to develop better sensors and improved techniques for data processing for the next generation of American and Russian early warning satellites.¹⁹ RAMOS was intended to conduct joint research and

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^* For a detailed explanation of the revised U.S. approach, see U.S. Department of Defense, February 2019, Missile Defense Review Report, available at https://media.defense.gov/2019/Jan/17/2002080666/-1/-1/1/2019-MISSILE-DEFENSE-REVIEW.PDF, accessed on February 21, 2019.

^† The chronology and much of the previous discussion are based on information provided to the joint committees during an open session of a meeting of the joint committees (see Appendix E for meeting agenda) by Bradley H. Roberts, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for nuclear and missile defense policy in the Obama administration.

development to improve space-based early warning capabilities especially enhancing the ability to detect dim targets and reduce false alarms, and to conduct environmental monitoring.

Initially, RAMOS was to consist of two satellites, one American and one Russian, both in low-Earth orbit, with their respective ground support stations in their home countries. Russia was to provide launch capabilities for both satellites. The sensors developed by each country for their satellites would observe the same phenomena stereoscopically. That is, they would measure the same objects or phenomena from different locations simultaneously, and the analyses could be compared within a joint technical team, formally created under the agreement.

The parameters of the RAMOS program evolved as the United States shifted its proposed approach to one where Russia would design both satellites and the United States would provide sensors for both. With each proposed change, the United States sought an official government-to-government agreement, and withheld funds pending the agreement. The Russian Federation sought firmer commitments in light of the changing U.S. positions. Ultimately, the RAMOS program was cancelled in 2004.

BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENSE AND STRATEGIC STABILITY

The joint committees’ Statement of Task stated that they would conduct an examination of ballistic missile defense “in the context of strategic stability.” During the Cold War, strategic stability was a reasonably well-understood term describing relations between the United States and the Soviet Union. The term had two elements: crisis (more precisely, first strike) stability, where neither country had incentives to strike first in a crisis, and arms race stability, where neither country had an incentive to engage in an arms race based on the belief that it could gain a major strategic advantage. Arms control was used to enhance stability by, as a 1990 joint statement said, “…seeking agreements that improve survivability, remove incentives for a nuclear first strike and implement an appropriate relationship between strategic offenses and defenses.”²⁰ This last point is particularly relevant to the joint committees’ effort. If one side thought it would have insufficient surviving missiles remaining for a retaliatory strike, it might see military advantage to shooting first in a time of great tension. This would, obviously, be highly destabilizing.

In the complex world that emerged following the end of the Cold War, some analysts have broadened the term in various ways. As a result, “strategic stability” can be used to refer to its traditional Cold War meaning, as a de facto synonym for national security (although the joint committees do not favor such a definition), or to a variety of intermediate definitions. The joint committees believe that for the purposes of this report the term should retain essentially the meaning it was given during the Cold War, but with recognition of several complicating factors that have emerged in recent years.

Even during the Cold War, strategic stability was not entirely clear-cut. Asymmetric complicating factors included extensive Soviet air defense (threatening U.S. bombers) and U.S. anti-submarine warfare capabilities (threatening Soviet ballistic missile submarines). At various times, each side feared the other sought to deploy destabilizing strategic defenses. United States’ concerns were largely in the period before the ABM Treaty of 1972, while Soviet concerns were greatest during research on the Strategic Defense Initiative in the 1980s.²¹ Despite these complicating factors, the two countries were able to work together to maintain and reinforce strategic stability.

The post-Cold War world introduces new complicating factors. Some of these factors—regional conflicts, nuclear proliferation, and fears of nuclear terrorism—are of concern to both the

United States and the Russian Federation but are not relevant to the question of ballistic missile defense cooperation. Others are more directly relevant to strategic stability between the two countries. A significant near-term concern of the Russian Federation is nonnuclear strategic strike by precision long-range conventional forces, ballistic or cruise missiles (especially sea launched). This concern includes, but is not limited to, the U.S. Conventional Prompt Global Strike System.²² One of the greatest near-term concerns of the United States is the Russian aerospace defense program, especially the possibility of anti-satellite capabilities.

Neither of these issues is likely to influence strategic stability during the period covered by this analysis, that is through 2020 and a few years thereafter. This period of analysis was chosen because the Russian Federation is embarking on a plan to upgrade all elements of its BMD system by 2020.²³ U.S. Conventional Prompt Global Strike systems based on existing ICBM and submarine-launched ballistic missile launchers are already regulated by the New START Treaty. The program has had two test failures, limited successes, and limited funding, and it will not even have a target date for deployment for several years.²⁴ More advanced systems (hypersonic boost-glide vehicles) are in development as a very limited niche capability.

Some analysts have suggested that conventional sea-launched cruise missiles^* could be used in a first strike, relying on the difficulty of detecting such a strike to achieve its objectives. Setting aside the challenge of coordinating such a strike, which would require very large numbers of missiles to have any strategic impact, U.S. ability to carry it out will be reduced over the next decade. The United States currently has four Ohio-class cruise-missile-carrying submarines, each with a capacity of 154 cruise missiles in 22 launch tubes. All will retire between 2025 and 2027. In 2024, the United States will deploy its first Virginia-class attack submarine with a “Virginia payload module” of four large vertical tubes capable of carrying 7 cruise missiles per tube for a total of 28 cruise missiles. Regaining the cruise-missile-carrying capacity of the retired Ohio-class submarines will require construction of 22 such submarine.^† On the current shipbuilding schedule, this will not occur until around 2040, although it could be as soon as 2035 if additional submarines were constructed.²⁵

With respect to anti-satellite capabilities, the current Russian program is unlikely to disrupt strategic stability. Russia’s extensive air-space modernization program does not include dedicated anti-satellite capability.²⁶ The Russian S-400 and S-500 air defense systems (like the U.S. Aegis system) have some limited capability against satellites in low-Earth orbit,²⁷ but these capabilities do not fundamentally alter strategic stability because they do not prevent communication with surviving forces to order a retaliatory strike. The joint committees recognize that these various complicating factors are important. This report and its recommendations are not intended to solve all existing issues of strategic stability. The joint committees’ analysis, however, suggests that the new factors complicating strategic stability do not and should not preclude moving ahead with cooperation on information sharing for ballistic missile defense. Limited cooperation on defenses against IRBMs is not destabilizing because such defensive systems cannot preclude devastating retaliatory strikes by either the Russian Federation or the United States.²⁸

Strategic stability may be analyzed in geopolitical terms, on a global level, or on a regional level. Far from being destabilizing, cooperation on ballistic missile defense may help improve

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^* All U.S. nuclear sea-launched cruise missiles have been retired.

^† U.S. Department of Defense, March 2015, Report to Congress on the Annual Long-Range Plan for Construction of Naval Vessels for Fiscal Year 2016, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, available at https://news.usni.org/wpcontent/uploads/2015/04/FY16-30-Year-Shipbuilding-Plan.pdf, accessed on October 22, 2018. The report provides planned funding dates for Virginia-class submarines; the typical time from funding to completion is 60 months.

overall strategic stability in a broader sense on both global and regional levels. Globally, successful cooperation in any area builds trust and therefore promotes stability. On a regional level, information sharing may improve the ability of both countries to deal with third-country ballistic missile threats, thus improving each country’s security. While new factors influencing strategic stability are of genuine concern and deserve appropriate attention, none of them invalidates the benefits of information sharing for ballistic missile defense.

In evaluating this report it is important to recognize what it does not advocate. The report is limited to information sharing that can facilitate defense against threats from IRBMs. The joint committees limited the scope of the study to regional ballistic missile defense because under the INF Treaty, neither the United States nor the Russian Federation were permitted to possess such missiles. Thus, the information sharing proposed in the following chapters is relevant only to third-country threats. The joint committees recognize that many Russian officials (and some American analysts) consider deployment of U.S. missile defense in Europe a strategic threat to the Russian Federation that may undermine the strategic balance between the two countries. Based on the analysis of the joint committees, current U.S. interceptors planned for deployment in Europe are not kinetically capable against ICBMs, which both the United States and Russia possess. Russian officials have acknowledged both that their ICBMs can penetrate existing U.S. defenses and that their concerns about the U.S. deployments in Europe are more about potential future expansion of defense capabilities than about current planned deployments. Nothing in this report is intended to endorse any specific future deployments of defenses of either country.

LIMITATIONS DUE TO COMPETING POLITICAL AND STRATEGIC VISIONS

This report provides the technical rationale for the advantages of cooperation between the United States and the Russian Federation in the development and use of missile defense systems. In addition, the benefit of cooperation is not abstract, and may be assessed only in the context of fulfilling tasks that are assigned to the defense systems of both countries. These tasks are the political and strategic bedrock upon which missile defense systems and elements of their potential cooperation may stand.

Thus, the theoretical advantages of missile defense cooperation may be realized in practice only in the context of a corresponding political and strategic environment. Today, unfortunately, such an environment does not exist. Compared with the end of the 1990s and the period from 2001 to 2011, when the idea of missile defense cooperation reached the level of intergovernmental relations and negotiations between the two countries, today’s objective conditions for such cooperation are much less conducive.

A return to the concept of missile defense cooperation that may use the prerequisites and recommendations of this study is possible only if positive changes occur in these circumstances. This will require great political, diplomatic, and technical-military efforts in both countries.

Although the joint committees are convinced that the cooperation described in this report is in the security interests of both the United States and the Russian Federation and would not pose a threat to strategic stability, factors beyond the scope of our analysis make such cooperation unlikely over the short term. Differing views of the conflicts in Ukraine and Syria, and of treaty compliance, have maintained political tensions between the two states at levels that are reminiscent of the Cold War.

The joint committees have neither the mandate nor the ability to reconcile the nations’ competing strategic visions. They recognize that until such reconciliation occurs and political

conditions improve, cooperation is unlikely. They believe, however, that the approach set forth in the following chapters is technically sound and, when conditions permit, its implementation would improve the security of both countries.

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