BUSH MISSILE DEFENSE IN ALASKA IS NOT STAR WARS
by Dr. Robert M. Bowman, Lt. Col., USAF, ret.
The Bush Administration has just deployed its anti-ballistic missile (ABM) interceptors in silos in Alaska. Initially, the system includes five interceptors at Fort Greeley, Alaska. Their plan (should they be reelected) is to deploy four interceptors at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, by the end of this year and another eleven additional interceptors at Fort Greeley next year.
This is not Star Wars. Basically, it is an updated version of the old Safeguard system deployed at Grand Forks Air Force Base, North Dakota, in the early 1970s. Safeguard was deployed as the single ABM site allowed under the 1972 ABM Treaty with the Soviet Union. The day after it was declared operational, Congress voted to scrap it. Its effectiveness was judged to be so low that it wasnt worth the cost of maintaining it.
Under pressure by the Republicans, President Clinton in the 1990s approved a new ABM system. Called National Missile Defense (NMD), it was to be deployed no sooner than 2005. Like Safeguard, it was ground-based, confined to a single site (Fort Greeley, Alaska), and in compliance with the ABM Treaty. But it was to take advantage of improved technology to allow its interceptors to hit incoming warheads sooner, even before they reentered the atmosphere. That would allow the single site to protect a much larger area (most of the continental United States) instead of just a small circle around the site, like the Safeguard.
But to do this requires vastly improved detection and tracking systems. To do this, the Clinton Administration proposed several new radars, including a powerful X-band radar to be built on Shemya Island in the Aleutians. In theory, such a radar could pick out the nuclear warhead from among its accompanying cloud of decoys, allowing the interceptor to be directed to the right target.
Bushs new system (currently called Ground-based Midcourse Defense, GMD) is a modification of Clintons plan. The modifications seem designed primarily to violate the ABM Treaty, giving President Bush an excuse to withdraw from the Treaty (which he did). The new plan makes the X-band radar mobile by putting it on ships, and a second site was added (Vandenberg). Neither of these modifications would have been allowed by the ABM Treaty.
The development of the X-band radar is about two years behind schedule, and the flight testing for the interceptor rocket and its Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV) is about four years behind. As a matter of fact, the interceptor now deployed in Alaska has never been tested at all. The last flight test (two years ago) used an old booster rocket because the new faster one hadnt been built. It went after a lower, slower target than would be encountered with an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) warhead. It was told in advance what the target would look like. The target carried a C-band transponder sending out a continuous radio signal telling the interceptor system where it was. The target was not accompanied by realistic decoys. The interceptor knew in advance exactly when the target dummy warhead would be launched and exactly where in space it was to meet it. In other words, the test was rigged for success. It failed! They havent tried again since.
Even if the interceptor rockets and EKVs could work, the X-band radar which is supposed to guide the whole mess wont be built for another couple of years. Yet the president says, Let them fire their missiles at us. Well shoot them down. Shades of Bring em on!
So $32 billion has been spent on a weapon system which has been deployed even though it is completely untested and highly unlikely to work. Fortunately, it is designed to counter a non-existent threat. Neither North Korea nor Iran has a missile capable of reaching even halfway to the continental United States. The CIA has repeatedly told Congress and the executive branch that ballistic missiles are the LEAST likely means of delivery of a weapon of mass destruction to the United States. That $32 billion would have been better spent on ways to detect and stop weapons from entering the country in aircraft, boats, shipping containers, and suitcases.
But Bushs GMD system in Alaska is not Star Wars. It does not involve actual weapons in space. It cannot be used in a purely offensive mode. It is unlikely to get us into a nuclear war. It is just an incredible waste of our money. Compared to the war in Iraq, it is hardly worth bothering about. But if theres a second term, then watch out. Bush has plans for true Star Wars weapons. Fortunately, theyre even further behind schedule than his Potemkin Village shell game in Alaska.
Star Wars weapons are theoretically designed to intercept enemy intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) in their boost phase, as they rise out of their silos. To do this, they must be deployed over or near the missile fields. All the candidate weapon systems have to get within 300 miles of the enemy missile silo to do their job. Thus, for example the Aegis destroyer carrying interceptors has to cruise just off shore, perhaps in the South China Sea.
Another boost phase intercept weapon is the Airborne Laser (ABL), a modified Boeing 747 with a high power oxygen-iodine chemical laser. It must fly in circles near the enemy missile fields waiting for the ICBMs to be fired.
Finally there are space-based weapons (laser battle stations or brilliant pebbles or whatever. They have to operate in low orbit (under 300 miles).
The point is that all these Star Wars weapons are extremely vulnerable and would only be useful to an aggressor with the element of surprise on their side. They could also be used as pure offensive weapons, shooting at enemy satellites, aircraft, limousines, or what have you. That is what distinguishes them from Bushs GMD and makes them more dangerous. They are much worse than just a waste of money. We will continue to work against their deployment, whoever is president.
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