Missile Defense Briefing Paper. The Alaska Option

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1 Missile Defense Briefing Paper 20 July 2001 The Alaska Option Summary The Bush administration has proposed building a set of missile defense facilities in Alaska by 2004, including five silos to house national missile defense (NMD) interceptor missiles at Fort Greely in eastern Alaska. According to the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO), these facilities would serve both as: (1) a test bed to allow more realistic testing of the midcourse NMD system under development, and (2) an emergency defense should the United States be attacked by a small number of long-range missiles. However, the proposed facilities at Fort Greely would serve no useful purpose for flight testing of the midcourse NMD system. Long-range missile interceptors would not be launched from Fort Greely, but would be transported to Kodiak Island for test launches, 500 miles away. Moreover, while launching target missiles from Kodiak might be useful to provide a different intercept geometry, launching interceptor missiles from Kodiak is not needed to allow more realistic testing. Nor would the proposed Alaskan facilities provide even a minimal defense of the United States. The upgraded radars in Alaska could not discriminate warheads from even simple decoys and would not see attacks from North Korea on Hawaii. Moreover, the United States will not have conducted enough flight tests by 2004 to have any confidence in the interceptor performance. The administration plans to begin silo construction at Fort Greely in spring or early summer Since this site cannot be justified as a flight-test facility, and its purpose is to allow for NMD deployment in an emergency, it would be a deployment site under the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty and thus a treaty violation. Therefore, authorizing funds to build these silos should be treated as a decision to begin deployment of an NMD system. Yet such a decision is premature since it would take place while the technology for the system is still in the early stage of R&D testing, and well before anyone can know whether the system would work as intended. Moreover, building interceptor silos at Fort Greely would likely result in adverse reactions by Russia, China, or North Korea that could reduce US security.

2 The Alaska Option The Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO) is proposing to construct a set of missile defense facilities in Alaska, which would include: 1 building five silos for interceptor missiles at Fort Greely, in eastern Alaska, in spring or early summer 2002 building two launcher silos at Kodiak, Alaska, in spring or summer 2003 upgrading the Cobra Dane radar on Shemya Island. BMDO gives two justifications for building and upgrading these facilities, arguing that doing so would: 1. Allow more realistic testing BMDO says that these facilities would be part of a test bed that will allow more realistic testing of the mid-course missile defense system it is developing. 2. Provide an emergency defense BMDO has argued that these new facilities could provide an early emergency defense system by 2004 or soon thereafter in case a missile attack from northeast Asia occurred before a tested system could be deployed late in this decade. Below we consider each of these justifications in turn. We find that the proposed plans make sense neither as a testing nor a deployment option. Moreover, proceeding with these plans could well have adverse consequences for US security. 1. Realistic Testing? BMDO argues that these new facilities in Alaska would allow it to conduct more realistic missile defense tests and remove some of the shortcomings of the current testing program. BMDO officials have stated that this is being done to respond to criticisms of the testing program by the Pentagon s former Director of Operational Testing and Evaluation (DOT&E), Philip Coyle, and others. Below we examine the role that the various proposed facilities those at Fort Greely and Kodiak Island, and the Cobra Dane radar could play in an improved flight test program: Missile silos at Fort Greely would have no role in a flight test program. For safety reasons, the United States does not launch long-range interceptor missiles from an inland site. Indeed, BMDO has stated that test launches cannot be conducted from Fort Greely since it is too near populated areas. Therefore, BMDO states that interceptor missiles at Fort Greely would be transported to the missile launch facility on Kodiak Island off the southern Alaskan coast, which is some 500 miles away from Fort Greely. The interceptor missiles could then be launched over the ocean so the interceptors would not fly over populated areas. 1 In addition, BMDO plans to upgrade the early warning radar at Beale, California and says it is considering building an X-band radar in the mid-pacific in FY2006. Some reports have said this radar will be located in Hawaii. It is unclear why BMDO does not list the early warning radar located at Clear, Alaska, as part of the proposed test bed or the emergency deployment system. 2

3 This makes clear that building missile silos or storing interceptor missiles at Fort Greely would in no way be useful to a flight test program. Such construction could only be justified by the emergency defense rationale and not the testing rationale. BMDO argues that building these facilities would allow it to exercise the components and rehearse various procedures there. But these activities are not a part of R&D testing, but rather are the kinds of activities needed to get a deployment site up and running. A decision on whether to fund this construction should therefore be treated as a deployment issue and not a testing issue. Because the proposed plan would deploy interceptors under the guise of a test program, it constitutes an attempt by the Bush administration to make an end-run around congressional oversight and fly before you buy restrictions, and thus cut Congress out of the decision about whether to begin deployment of a national missile defense. The Cobra Dane radar on Shemya is not useful for testing in the proposed Kodiak-Kwajalein- Vandenberg area, and should be considered as part of the emergency defense deployment. The Cobra Dane radar has a fixed orientation and looks in a fan northwest from Shemya over Russia, since it was built to observe Soviet missile tests. As a result, despite being listed as part of the proposed test bed, it cannot see any missiles in the Kodiak-Kwajalein-Vandenberg test area, and therefore cannot be used in tests in this area (see figure). BMDO officials have stated that this radar is in the right orientation for the test of air-launched targets. 2 The plan appears to be to launch target missiles toward the Cobra Dane radar from the Bering Sea to simulate possible trajectories of missiles launched from North Korea. However, that activity would be useful for testing the capabilities of the emergency deployment site, and would not be part of R&D testing. Cobra Dane Field of View Ft. Greely Shemya Kodiak Vandenberg Hawaii Kwajalein 2 Transcript of Pentagon briefing on missile defense, 11 July

4 The potential role of the Kodiak launch facility We now consider the role of the proposed facilities at Kodiak in conducting more realistic flight tests. We first note that to conduct realistic tests of the midcourse system, it is important that the test include an X-band Ground-Based Radar (GBR). These X-band radars are intended to be an integral part of any midcourse NMD system: they would be used to track incoming warheads and are a key sensor in BMDO s plans to discriminate warheads from decoys and debris and to conduct kill assessment. The United States has built a prototype X-band Ground-Based Radar at its test facility at Kwajalein for exactly this reason to provide a prototype component for missile defense testing. In addition, the Kwajalein test range includes an extensive $4 billion complex of sophisticated radars and other sensors that were constructed there to provide the information needed to monitor and assess an intercept test. These facilities provide a very strong rationale for conducting intercept tests within sight of the Kwajalein radars. There is no X-band radar in Alaska nor the diagnostic equipment of the kind that has been built at Kwajalein. Even an upgraded early-warning radar at Clear, Alaska, could not realistically substitute for the X-band radar because it uses a frequency 20 times lower, so that its ability to spatially resolve objects is worse by a factor of 10 or more. The Cobra Dane radar on Shemya uses a frequency 10 times lower than the X-band radar and has a fixed orientation towards Russia s missile fields that would prevent it from viewing target missiles in the proposed Kodiak-Vandenberg-Kwajalein test area. The Pentagon s former Director of Operational Testing and Evaluation (DOT&E), Philip Coyle, has written that the operational realism of the current tests is limited by the location of the radars relative to the current missile trajectories. The fact that there is not an early warning radar near Kwajalein and that the X-band radar at Kwajalein is not located forward in the test geometry (as it would be in some operational scenarios) is less than optimal for testing. However, building the proposed facilities in Alaska would not address these limitations because there is no X-band radar in Alaska nor the diagnostic equipment of the kind that exists at Kwajalein. Moreover, if BMDO is planning to build an X-band radar in the mid-pacific or if, as discussed below, it is planning to use ship-based radars to substitute for the X-band Ground-Based Radar in some tests, it could equally well use those sensors to provide a radar that was forward-deployed relative to the interceptors at Kwajalein. In his August 2000 evaluation of the NMD test program, Mr. Coyle argued that the missile defense test program should do a number of things to make the tests more stressing and realistic: incorporate more realistic countermeasures than are currently planned include tests involving multiple interceptors launched against multiple targets include tests in which the defense has limited a priori knowledge of the target complex, target trajectory, and time of launch include more variation in the engagement conditions, including varying: -the time of day -the weather conditions (by testing in heavy rain and dense clouds) 4

5 -the intercept geometry -the interceptor flyout range -the altitude of intercept -the closing speed between the kill vehicle and target. The Pentagon has argued that adding test facilities in Alaska would allow it to address Mr. Coyle s criticisms and conduct more realistic testing by using more realistic threat trajectories and allowing more complex engagement scenarios. 3 However, it is clear that this would at best address only some of Mr. Coyle s concerns, and does not address the most fundamental shortcomings of the testing program the lack of realistic countermeasures and the information given to the defense in advance of a test. Even if BMDO is able to develop the ability to conduct reliable hit-to-kill on the test range, it must show that the system can work in realistic tests against countermeasures of the type that would be expected in a real attack. Such tests can be carried out with interceptors launched from the existing Kwajalein test facility. Similarly, tests with multiple interceptors and targets, tests in which the defense does not have full a priori information, and tests that vary the time of day or include heavy rain and clouds can all be conducted using the test site at Kwajalein to launch interceptors. 4 The proposed facilities in Alaska are not needed for any of these purposes. Varying the other engagement conditions listed above the intercept geometry and altitude, the interceptor flyout range, and the closing speed may at first appear to be good reasons to build the proposed Kodiak facilities. We examine each of these below and find that firing interceptors from Kodiak would provide no advantage to the testing program in terms of varied engagement geometries. Intercept geometry. Currently, the United States launches the target missiles for its NMD intercept tests from Vandenberg Air Force Base, on the California coast. The target missile is launched on a westward trajectory over the Pacific Ocean. As part of the test program, it would be useful to vary the intercept geometry so that the warhead and interceptor approach each other from varying directions. The United States could achieve very different intercept geometries (different angles between the directions the warhead and interceptor are travelling) by simply having the interceptor fly out from Kwajalein in different directions or by launching target missiles from sites other than Vandenberg. Thus, it might be useful to launch target missiles from Kodiak, while continuing to launch the interceptor missiles from Kwajalein. Launching target missiles from Kodiak would be technically feasible once the existing commercial launch facility is complete, and would be compliant with the ABM Treaty. However, there would be no advantage to launching interceptors from Alaska. Moreover, BMDO has also indicated that it plans to use air-launched target missiles (where missiles would be launched from a cargo plane). If using such targets proves practical, it would 3 Briefing paper on The Missile Defense System Test Bed circulated by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, 17 July Construction of additional silos is planned at Vandenberg and Kwajalein to allow launches of multiple interceptors and targets. 5

6 allow a great variety of intercept geometries using interceptors launched from Kwajalein. Launching interceptors or target missiles from Kodiak would not add any variations in geometry beyond what could be achieved by launching interceptors from Kwajalein and targets from airplanes. Interceptor flyout range. The interceptor range in the current tests is constrained by two factors: (1) a desire to have intercepts take place within range of the prototype X-band radar and other sensors at the Kwajalein test facility, and (2) a desire to have intercepts take place at low altitudes to avoid creating space debris that could interfere with or destroy satellites or spacecraft in low earth orbit. BMDO has said that it intends to conduct most of its intercept tests so that the intercept takes place between altitudes of roughly 160 and 320 kilometers (100 to 200 miles); the previous tests have planned for the intercept to occur at an altitude of 230 kilometers (145 miles). Intercepting at altitudes up to 320 kilometers would allow the radars at Kwajalein to observe these intercepts out to a distance of roughly 1,800 kilometers (1,100 miles). The fact that the earth is curved means that a radar could only observe intercepts at a greater distance if they occurred at higher altitudes (see graph of radar horizon 5 ) Radar Horizon 1500 Altitude (km) Distance from Radar (km) To be seen by a radar at a given distance, an object must be at or higher than the altitiude shown on the plot. However, the interceptor flyout range for interceptors launched from Kwajalein is not yet bumping up against these constraints. The intercepts in the past tests have taken place at roughly 700 kilometers from Kwajalein. The interceptor flyout range could be increased to roughly 1,800 kilometers while conducting low altitude intercepts that could be observed by the Kwajalein radars. 5 The plot of radar horizon assumes that the minimum radar elevation is 3 degrees above the horizon. 6

7 Longer interceptor flyouts could be achieved by having the intercept occur at higher altitudes to allow it to be seen by the Kwajalein radars, or by observing low-altitude intercepts with sensors other than those at Kwajalein. This is certainly the situation for some of the potential intercept locations that are shown on BMDO briefing slides these intercept points are located thousands of kilometers from any ground-based radar. If these are intended to be low-altitude intercepts, BMDO may be assuming that it will track the warhead and observe the intercept with ship-based sensors, such as the Cobra Judy radars on Observation Island. 6 Using ship-based radars as part of a strategic missile defense intercept test would be a violation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. In any event, once BMDO is planning to either intercept at higher altitudes or use ship-based sensors, it can conduct very long interceptor flyouts with the interceptors launched from Kwajalein. There is again no clear advantage to launching interceptors from Alaska for this purpose. Intercept altitude. As discussed above, to restrict space debris BMDO plans to conduct most intercepts below roughly 300 kilometers. However, realistic testing would eventually require tests involving intercepts at considerably higher altitudes. For example, in Congressional testimony in February 1999, Dr. John Peller, then NMD Program Manager at Boeing, the NMD prime contractor, described a simulated intercept of a missile launched by North Korea toward Alaska. 7 The intercept in his example would have occurred at an altitude of roughly 1,100 kilometers. There would be no advantage to launching interceptors from Alaska rather than from Kwajalein to achieve high intercept altitudes. Indeed, as noted above, intercepting at higher altitudes would permit longer interceptor flyout ranges from Kwajalein while still allowing the intercept to be observed from Kwajalein. Closing speed at intercept. In past intercept tests, the closing speed at intercept was roughly 7 kilometers/second (the target speed was roughly 6.6 kilometers/second and the interceptor speed 2.2 kilometers per second at intercept.) The barrier to achieving higher and more realistic closing speeds is not the interceptor launch location but the booster acceleration. Achieving higher closing speeds requires a faster interceptor and a more powerful interceptor booster than the surrogate booster now being used in intercept tests. The booster currently under development for the midcourse system is intended to accelerate the interceptor to these higher speeds. Again, basing interceptors in Alaska is not needed to address this issue. The above analysis shows that BMDO has not laid out a clear or convincing rationale for launching interceptors from Alaska as part of its testing program. It has stated that constructing its proposed test bed would allow it to conduct a more realistic testing program, and yet none of the reasons it has publicly advanced justify this statement. It implies that having several sites to launch interceptor missiles and target missiles would greatly increase its testing capabilities. 6 Cobra Judy includes both an S-band phased-array radar and an X-band dish radar. BMDO has said that it plans to eventually use a modified version of the Aegis Spy-1 radar to track long-range missiles in missile defense tests, but this radar is S-band, and therefore has a much lower spatial resolution than an X-band radar. 7 Testimony to the Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, Committee on Armed Services, US Senate, 24 February

8 However, it has not specified what additional capabilities it believes it would gain by launching interceptors from Alaska, especially as part of its near-term test program, or why those capabilities could not be achieved in other ways. Moreover, BMDO briefing slides show desired locations for test intercept points that lie far from any existing radars, yet BMDO has not stated whether it plans to conduct these intercepts at high altitude or whether it instead plans to use ship-based sensors to substitute for the X-band Ground-Based Radar in these tests, and it has not specified what sensors it would use in the latter case. If BMDO intends to conduct these tests at high altitudes, it has not discussed the issue of releasing debris into orbit or how it intends to address this problem An Emergency Defense System? The other argument for a crash program to build the proposed missile defense facilities in Alaska is to create a near-term emergency defense that might offer some capability in the event of a missile attack on the United States. According to Lt. Col. Rick Lehner, a spokesman for the Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, If you face an emergency and had some confidence in these interceptors, then they could be used as an emergency missile defense. 9 However, such an emergency defense system would have very limited utility, for two reasons. First, the United States will have little basis by 2004 to be confident in the performance of the interceptors. The interceptors will almost certainly not have begun operational testing by that time under the Clinton schedule, operational testing was to begin in FY 2005, but this schedule has already slipped by more than a year. Attaining confidence in the performance of a weapon system requires that operational testing under a variety of realistic conditions be completed something that will not occur for the midcourse NMD before , at best. Second, the proposed system would provide very little protection should an attack occur. Even if the interceptor and kill vehicle technology worked to some level of effectiveness by that time, the system performance would be very limited by its sensors. The upgraded early-warning radar at Clear should be able to track an incoming warhead sufficiently accurately to allow an interceptor to be launched toward it, but its poor resolution means that it would have very little capability to discriminate the warhead from other objects, including debris or simple decoys. Thus, it could be fooled by very simple countermeasures. While an upgraded version of the Cobra Dane radar would have better resolution than the early-warning radar, it would also be vulnerable to being fooled by even simple decoys. 8 Adding debris at altitudes of 300 to 1000 kilometers is a serious concern since even very small particles traveling at orbital speeds could damage or destroy a satellite or manned spacecraft, such as the Space Shuttle and International Space Station. Some of the debris from such intercepts would be on highly elliptical orbits that would decay quickly, but the tests would certainly place some debris in relatively long-lived orbits at altitudes that could interfere with satellites and other spacecraft. 9 James Dao, Pentagon To Seek Money For Testing Missile Defense, New York Times, July 10, 2001, p.1. 8

9 Another reason the system would offer little protection is that neither the upgraded early-warning radar at Clear, Alaska, nor the Cobra Dane radar on Shemya would be able to see missiles launched from North Korea toward Hawaii. 10 Thus, if North Korea were to attack the United States, building the proposed emergency defense would likely cause it to simply redirect a missile attack from the US mainland to Hawaii. Moreover, it appears that the Cobra Dane radar would have marginal capability against missiles on trajectories from North Korea to cities in southern California since it would only be able to observe such trajectories for a short period of time. One has to assume that if North Korea were planning to launch a missile at the United States, it would take measures to make its attack effective, such as adding decoys or targeting Hawaii. Thus, one would have to expect that against a real attack, such an emergency defense would offer very little protection. Advocates of such an early deployment have argued that although such a system may offer very limited protection, any defense is better than none. However, such a deployment decision should be based on comparing the potential security benefits of such a system to the potential security costs. Adverse reactions by Russia, China, or North Korea would likely lead to reduced US security. The planned activities at Fort Greely would violate the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. Russian President Putin recently stated that if the United States violated or withdrew from the ABM Treaty, Russia would not adhere to the START II agreement and instead would resume deploying multiple-warhead missiles. North Korea has stated that a US violation of the ABM Treaty would lead it to break its current moratorium on missile testing. The United States should also expect that such a deployment would worsen relations with China. For more information, contact: Dr. David Wright, Senior Staff Scientist, at x220 Dr. Lisbeth Gronlund, Senior Staff Scientist, at x219 Mr. Tom Collina, Director, Global Security Program, at x109 Mr. Stephen Young, Senior Analyst and Washington Representative, at x As noted above, the Cobra Dane radar has a fixed orientation, and looks in a fan northwest from Shemya over Russia, since it was built to observe Soviet missile tests. 9