War on Earth from Space

as planned by the

United States Space Command

"Those who know, don't speak;

those who speak, don't know"

-- Lao-Tse, 3rd century B.C.

Jack Truher

06/16/01 0731

jack@truher.com

10569 Creston Drive Los Altos CA 94024

days 408-732-1859 ; voicemail 408 733-7363

opinion based on

United State Space Command: “Full Spectrum Dominance”

http://www.spacecom.af.mil/usspace/links.htm

http://www.spacecom.af.mil/usspace

" Those who profess to favor freedom, yet deprecate agitation,

are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.

They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean

without the awful roar of its many waters.

This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one;

but it must be a struggle.

Power concedes nothing without demand. It never did and it never will."

-- Frederick Douglas

http://www.spacecom.af.mil/usspace

U.S.AirForce, SpaceCommand ->Vision 2020

http://www.dtic.mil/jv2020/ -or-

http://www.spacecom.af.mil/usspace/visbook.pdf

'Mini-Nukes' , Developing Tactical Nuclear Weapons

http://inq.philly.com/content/inquirer/2000/10/16/art/nukes16a.htm

http://www.sirius.com/~truher/NMD_Mini-Nuke.html

Why Oppose National Missile Defense (NMD/ABM)

Union of Concerned Scientists, 1995.

http://www.ucsusa.org/security/ltr.physicist.html

Prominent physicists respond to a push by the new Republican majority in Congress to deploy a national missile defense system

June 27, 1995

Dear Senator _______ :

As scientists who have long been involved with missile defense issues, we believe that current efforts to once again pursue a national missile defense system are terribly misguided. US security requires that defense expenditures reflect actual threats and that money be spent on systems that are technically capable of performing their mission. National missile defenses fail on both counts.

Summary

National missile defenses (NMD) provide no protection against the most likely future attacks on US territory by weapons of mass destruction, which would not be delivered by missiles. The methods of delivery have already been demonstrated by the bombings of the World Trade Center in New York and the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, and the gas attack on the Tokyo subway. Such attacks are relatively cheap, low-tech, and can be accurately targeted where they will be most effective; they maximize the effect of limited arsenals and can be delivered clandestinely.

The potential ballistic missile threats to the United States do not justify deployment of national missile defenses. Defenses could not be expected to stop a deliberate attack by either Russia or China, and the small threat of accidental launches by either country is better reduced by cooperative measures. Currently no country hostile to the United States possesses ballistic missiles capable of reaching the United States. Threats to the US homeland from other countries are very unlikely to be delivered by ballistic missiles even in the future since other methods of delivery are available that are less costly, less technically demanding, and more accurate. Moreover, satellite monitoring will give ample warning of the development of long-range missiles by any country, should this occur.

In addition, missile defenses face unsolved technical problems, in particular the inability of defenses to deal with a range of simple countermeasures, and the vulnerability of space-based components to simple antisatellite weapons. Deployment of NMD also involves high political and military costs that could reduce US security by hindering further cuts in US and Russian nuclear arsenals, endangering START II ratification and implementation, impeding measures to gain controls on the nuclear arsenals of the smaller nuclear-weapon states, and hindering the US nonproliferation program.

We discuss each of these points in more detail below.

Potential Ballistic Missile Threats to US Territory

There are four types of potential ballistic missile threats to US territory. Deploying NMD is not an appropriate or effective response to any of these threats.

Accidental launch of Russian or Chinese nuclear missiles According to US intelligence officials, an accidental or unauthorized launch from Russia or China is extremely unlikely. Moreover, it is in the interests of Russia and China to ensure that such launches do not occur. Indeed, Defense Intelligence Agency Director Gen. James Clapper testified in 1994 that "Russian strategic missile systems are currently considered to have very good control mechanisms" to prevent such launches, and the United States is currently discussing sharing similar systems with China. National missile defenses are the wrong solution to this problem in any event since cooperative measures could be implemented more quickly and cheaply, and would be more effective than NMD. These include installing destruct-after-launch mechanisms on all missiles to abort an unauthorized launch and separating nuclear warheads from delivery systems.

Deliberate nuclear attack by Russia or China The threat of a deliberate attack by these countries is also extremely small, even in times of tension, because of the certainty of retaliation. Moreover, defenses could not be expected to protect against such an attack since as long as these countries feel they need to retain a viable deterrent, they will make sure that their missiles can penetrate defenses. Russia will, in addition, retain the ability to overwhelm national missile defenses for the foreseeable future.

Deliberate missile attack by other country in the future Ballistic missiles are the least likely method a developing country would use to deliver an attack. Long-range missiles are more expensive and technically difficult to build and deploy than other means of delivery, and are less accurate. Since launches are readily detected by satellites, the United States would pinpoint the origin of a missile attack and could retaliate quickly with devastating force. Such retaliation would have to be considered as certain by any leader, and will always be a powerful deterrent to missile attacks.

Currently, no country hostile to the United States possesses ballistic missiles that can reach US territory. Even if such threats begin to emerge in the future, the United States will have considerable warning since missile development requires flight testing that can be monitored by satellite. Although some 20 countries in the developing world possess some type of short-range missile or space-launch vehicle, only countries friendly to the United States--Israel, India, and Saudi Arabia--have deployable systems with a range greater than 600 kilometers.

North Korea, perhaps the most discussed threat, has conducted one partial-range test of the 1000 kilometer range Nodong missile, but does not have an operational version after six to seven years of development. North Korea is reported to be working on new missiles with ranges up to 3,500 kilometers, but such missiles would require new technologies, such as staging and more powerful engines. Judging from the long development time of past North Korean missiles, deployment of such an intermediate-range missile is many years off at least, and progress can be monitored closely by satellite. In any event, none of these missiles would have the range to strike the US homeland.

A more likely future missile threat would be from cruise missiles, which are technically easier to build and more accurate than ballistic missiles. National missile defenses would not protect against cruise missiles, passenger aircraft, or ships. Neither could they protect against the most likely method of attack--the smuggling of a small number of weapons into the United States.

Deliberate attack by sub-national terrorist group Sub-national groups are far less likely to have access to long-range missiles than developing nations. Moreover, such organizations already have more effective and less costly options available, as demonstrated by the chemical attacks in Japan and bombings in New York and Oklahoma.

Continuing Problems of National Missile Defenses

The United States has pursued the deployment of national missile defenses twice before--in the 1960s and the 1980s. In both cases the program promised a lot, spent even more, but produced little. The key reasons that NMD deployment was rejected in the past still apply.

NMD Is Still Expensive The missile defense program is one of the most costly in the defense budget today, with funding at roughly $3 billion annually. While much of that budget is earmarked for theater defenses, there is discussion within Congress of increasing the priority of NMD and significantly boosting funding--by nearly half a billion dollars in a single year. Spending on NMD is not just an ineffective use of funds. It diverts resources and political will away from programs to reduce more urgent proliferation threats--such as assisting the dismantlement of Russian warheads and making the weapon-usable fissile material in the former Soviet republics more secure.

NMD Still Involves High Political and Military Costs Although past fears that NMD deployment could provoke a US-Soviet nuclear arms race have abated, it could still have this and other significant political and military costs. Opportunities for increasing US security by reducing existing nuclear arsenals and stemming nuclear proliferation could be eliminated by NMD deployment.

A nationwide defense system, even one with a limited number of interceptors, would require abandoning the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. The ABM Treaty permits the United States and Russia each to build one NMD site with no more than 100 interceptors. NMD deployment at the US allowed site, Grand Forks, ND, could not defend coastal areas where the great majority of the US population lives, let alone Alaska or Hawaii. Extending coverage to the coasts would require deploying additional sensors that could compensate for the inability of a radar at Grand Forks to see around the curve of the earth, but such sensors would violate the ABM Treaty. Thus, a treaty-compliant system cannot provide national coverage.

Some NMD advocates envision larger systems, involving multiple sites with ground-based radars and interceptors, or a space-based system. Such systems would unambiguously violate the ABM Treaty.

The ABM Treaty has been essential in reducing the threat to the United States from weapons of mass destruction. The START I Treaty, which cut Russia's arsenal by roughly half, would not exist were there no ABM Treaty. Achieving further cuts in nuclear arsenals would be difficult if not impossible in the foreseeable future without the ABM Treaty since Russia would insist on a large arsenal to overwhelm US defenses. Members of Russia's Duma have stated that development and deployment of an NMD system could prevent Russian ratification of START II, a treaty which would reduce deployed Russian nuclear weapons to 3,000 from their current level of roughly 8,000. Tensions over the ABM Treaty could also hinder cooperative efforts to ensure that Russian weapon-usable fissile material is not stolen and sold abroad.

The weakening of the ABM Treaty and the possibility of NMD deployments would also affect the smaller nuclear powers. France has reportedly linked its commitment to a comprehensive nuclear test ban (CTB) to continuing limits on ABM systems, because it wants to retain the option of developing new warheads to penetrate such defenses if they are deployed. Similarly, China has expressed concern about the development and deployment of defenses that could negate China's small strategic force. To preserve the option of expanding its arsenal to overwhelm a future NMD system, China might also refuse to sign a CTB and the international convention permanently halting the production of fissile material for weapons.

Such reactions to the deployment of national missile defenses--a failure of the nuclear-weapon states to make deeper nuclear cuts and to adopt a CTB and fissile material production cutoff--would undermine key US nonproliferation policies and, more generally, continued progress on international nonproliferation measures. In sum, they would directly undercut US national security.

We note that the ABM Treaty allows development and deployment of theater missile defenses (TMD), as long as those defenses are not so capable that they could intercept strategic missiles. Since the treaty does not specify how to determine whether a defense system has such capability, the United States and Russia have been discussing how to define permitted TMD systems. These negotiations are currently deadlocked, but resolving this issue to both countries' satisfaction is crucial since the development and deployment of strategic-capable missile defenses and consequent weakening of the ABM Treaty will result in arms control problems similar to those raised by NMD.

Key Technical Problems Remain Unsolved National missile defenses were also rejected in the past because they were deemed technically incapable of performing their mission. Despite the billions of dollars spent on missile defense for nearly four decades, the main technical barriers to developing a capable system remain. For example, US researchers have never overcome the problem of simple countermeasures, such as early release submunitions, chaff and decoys, and shaped reentry vehicles that maneuver in the atmosphere or have reduced radar cross-sections. Such techniques would be well within the capability of any nation that could build a long-range ballistic missile, and would certainly be incorporated in such missiles, should they face an NMD system. Moreover, space-based interceptors and lasers, which might be deployed to destroy missiles early in flight, remain highly vulnerable to simple antisatellite weapons.

Conclusion

Rather than devoting resources to national missile defenses, the United States should instead focus on programs to combat existing, more pressing threats. For example, a higher priority should be placed on bringing military and civil weapon-usable fissile material in the former Soviet republics under better control and accelerating safe, verified dismantlement of Russian nuclear warheads and delivery vehicles.

In sum, proposals to deploy NMD are misguided and irresponsible. National missile defenses do not address the existing and most likely future threats to the US homeland and are diverting valuable resources. Instead, NMD will destroy much of one of the United States' primary tools for maintaining and increasing national security: arms control. We urge you to weigh carefully the negligible benefits and substantial costs of deploying NMD. Thank you for your attention to our views and please call on us if we can be of assistance as you deliberate on this matter.

Sincerely,

Hans Bethe Professor of Physics Emeritus, Cornell University

Richard Garwin Adjunct Professor of Physics, Columbia University and IBM Fellow Emeritus, IBM Research Division

Kurt Gottfried Professor of Physics, Cornell University

Frank von Hippel Professor of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University

Henry W. Kendall Chairman, Union of Concerned Scientists and Stratton Professor of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Wolfgang K.H. Panofsky Professor and Director Emeritus, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Stanford University

UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS 2 Brattle Square Cambridge, MA 02238 617-547-5552