|
|
|||
|
|||
|
|
Missile Defense Back on Radar Dave Eberhart, NewsMax WASHINGTON -- On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld learned of the suicide attacks on the World Trade Center while at a meeting in his private dining room at the Pentagon. The meeting dealt with the cornerstone of the new administration's defense strategy: missile defense. The then-69-year-old grandfather literally ran from the dining room to his office. He was not there long when the third hijacked aircraft smashed into the opposite side of the Pentagon. To the chagrin of his aides, Rumsfeld raced to the site where the airliner hit, and there he got his hands dirty rendering what help he could. The defense chief then went to the National Military Command Center in the lower floors of the Pentagon. The missile defense meeting was over. Years later, the issue of missile defense, while pushed from the headlines by the exigencies of the War on Terrorism, still registers on many radars as an ominous threatening blip.
Story Continues Below
No where was that blip flashing brighter than at the American Foreign Policy Council's 2005 conference on "Missile Defenses and American Security," held Tuesday at the Longworth House Office Building. One conference speaker, Brian Kennedy, president of the Claremont Institute in California and the head of its ballistic missile defense panel, revealed that one study indicated that a walloping 74 percent of Americans "believe we have a missile defense system." A dangerous false impression, says Kennedy, who believes that despite victory in the Cold War, the U.S. is even more vulnerable now than in those relatively simple days of facing down the predictable Evil Empire.
Pulling no punches, Kennedy opined that a viable missile defense program is more important than the war on terrorism.
"Why is there no political consensus to build it?" Kennedy asks rhetorically. "The prevention of a direct attack on U.S. remains the key element of any strategy and it's the main responsibility of government. This fact seems to have been lost."
Kennedy lamented to a degree the revered proposition that President Ronald Reagan's military buildup caused the defeat of the former Soviet Union.
In fact, instructs Kennedy, "Russia was not disarmed." Pointing to its 4000 nuclear warheads and five heavy bomber divisions, he reminds the conference attendees that Russia has been moving forward at a fair clip to modernize its military.
And then there is the specter of Communist China, Kennedy says, where there are two million men under arms, 30 intercontinental ballistic missiles, hundreds of short and medium range missiles – and a fervent commitment to prepare for unrestricted warfare that includes both outer space and cyber space.
China is working pell-mell on space-based offensive/defensive systems, paying its way by selling dangerous technology to Pakistan, Libia "and other unsavory regimes," he warns.
Meanwhile, he perceives that the administration is "dragging its feet" on space-based missile defense -- for fear, ironically, of angering Russia and China.
Kennedy's take is that the nation is still thinking with its Cold War brain – brandishing the antiquated big stick of mutually assured destruction as the primary tool of deterrence.
"I fear a failure of imagination when it comes to missile attack -- just as was the case with 9/11," Kennedy says.
Meanwhile, according to the think-tank chief, Iran is testing ship-launching platforms for missiles. All is coming together, in his view, for a sneak attack on the U.S. mainland from missile-borne weapons fired from floating platforms offshore. The platforms, perhaps innocuous freighters, are then scuttled -- protecting the identity of the attacker.
Kennedy envisions a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, where when the U.S. rattles its nuclear saber, China lets it known that there will be a retaliatory strike if the U.S. attacks.
"Don't make a President have to make such a decision," beseeches Kennedy.
The way out of the theoretical dilemma, of course, is to give the President a missile defense capability that would neutralize China's threats from the get-go.
In Kennedy's view, liberals have opposed missile defense from the beginning and are particularly wary of space-based missile defense – as if space, a pristine place, is "out of bounds" for the tools of warfare.
"In fact," says Kennedy, "space has been militarized from the beginning."
"Missile defense has just become another political issue," Kennedy argues. "There are no campaign contributions for being good on national security."
The War on Terror has distracted us from the primary duty of defense against a direct attack, Kennedy sums up. What's worse, in his opinion, if a Democratic president is elected in 2008, "missile defense will be shelved for a decade."
Adding to the clarion call for action on missile defense is Jeff Kueter, the executive director of the George C. Marshall Institute. Kueter focuses on the Electro-magnetic Pulse, or EMP, threat. He described how a single EMP attack on Dayton Ohio – in the nation's heartland -- could burn-out 70 percent of the power grid across the country.
One solution rests with hardening the underlying infrastructure, but, as Kueter explains, the private power folks are not interested unless the feds pick up the hefty tab.
Kueter sees the cruise missile as perhaps the enemy's delivery vehicle of choice. But defense against a vehicle that flies just above the waves is problematic. Furthermore, in his view, as to the cruise missile threat there is presently "no single coordinating element as to national homeland defense."
What's on the front lines presently are tactical aircraft with down-looking radar and warships armed with systems to defeat a cruise missile attacks. But the defensive line is vulnerable unless a veritable picket-line of ships and planes was strung along both coasts.
But even with a thin line, the defensive tools don't have enough time on station, he explains. The alternative is to site patriot missile batteries all along the coasts. "But where?" Kueter asks.
One could utilize national park assets and military bases up and down eastern coast, for instance, but you would still have to extend the radar net far out into the ocean to ID the threat with enough warning to summon the right hardware to bring it down. Ilan Berman, vice president for Policy at the American Foreign Policy Council also points to the EMP attack dangers, noting that once a nuclear warhead is detonated there follow devastating effects on electronics at regional/national levels.
Berman also fears the ship-borne missile threat (whether EMP, biological or chemical), since more countries have short-medium range missiles than have ICBMs.
A launch platform resting just one hundred miles off coastline could fire a missile with "little or no warning." And there is no dearth of potential launch vehicles – there being no less than 130,000 registered ships plying the ocean lanes.
"It's a Herculean task to monitor," Berman says. What's more, he advises, most of the population is within 200 miles of coast – as are most military assets/bases.
Cruise missiles are already in the inventories of 75 countries. Of particular note, he says, is Iran, which thanks to Russia has a cruise missile with an 1800-mile range. N. Korea is also heavily into the cruise missile business.
Then, borrowing phrasing from Rumsfeld, there are the "unknown –unknowns," says Berman.
Like others at the conference, Berman says that most vital at this stage of the game is the "mobilization of political will."
Looking to space, Dr. Randall Correll, senior scientist at Science Applications International, warns that whatever the U.S. is doing or not doing, "the rest of the world is hard at work."
Says Correll, the N. Koreans have already been experimenting with flying satellites in space. Meanwhile, Iranian efforts in its space program appear to be a mirrored response to Israel. Iran has contracted with a Russian company to get communication satellites up and flying – increasing the coverage of TV and the Internet, and facilitating that country's ability to communicate with its people.
But there a dark side to the new Iranian skills – including that country's implication in jamming U.S. military electronics from Cuba.
In the Western hemisphere, says Correll, Canada has been excelling at space robotics and miniaturizing laser range-finding gear, key stuff in any future star war. What confounds Correll, however, is why Canada has taken the technological lead with such vital tools. "Where is the U.S.?" he asks.
Meanwhile, China is also happily in the micro-satellite business, working hand-in-hand with the Brazilian space agency. China is also a member of Europe's Galileo navigation system.
Dr. Robert Butterworth, the president of Aries Analytics, warns that internal feuds are causing the U.S. to fail in the new space race. He addresses the unhealthy competition between the military and intelligence communities.
"Defense should no longer be the parasite [on the backs of intelligence]," he warns.
On Butterworth's personal hit parade – the danger of a "scorched space" attack, a sort of mini Van Allan radiation belt caused by dirty bombs set off in orbit that will cook all the electronics in high-flying satellites. "The decay will be slow enough so that everything in orbit is bathed. The "biggest loser" will be the U.S.
Needed, he says, is a "dedicated team to worry about bad guys who want to scorch space."
Baker Spring, research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, noted to the conference attendees that a new strategic era began with 9/11. One regretful aspect of the new era is a "significant amount of atrophying" going on with regard to our nuclear forces."
Spring wants another hard look at the future of U.S. nuclear forces. "Do we have the right mix?" he questions.
Spring and his team of researchers have been game-playing on a global scale – with a virtual game-board of seven players, all presumed nuclear-armed. The end game plays out differently, he says, when the factor of missile defense is added to the mix.
He points to some games that get played out with a belligerent or two opting for voluntary disarmament. Their motivation: a combination of confidence in the U.S. offensive nuclear umbrella and a working missile defense system.
Dr. William Schneider, Jr., chairman of the Pentagon Defense Science Board, noted that the cost of producing atomic weapons is coming down. Consequently, America's friends and allies need to be dissuaded from scrambling for their own stockpiles of WMDs in order to ensure their security.
The key to this dissuasion is missile defense, he notes. Not only will its addition "limit the necessity of coercive diplomacy," but the dramatic add-on will alter the entire strategic environment.
In addition to the obvious hardware, Schneider envisions a needed "process," including modern command and control features and a new research and development infrastructure.
He sees an eventual U.S.-led missile defense, propagated to allies, which will "hold an adversary's missile to risk through all phases of its trajectory – not just the currently favored "mid-course."
Enemy countermeasures will be fatally frustrated by a missile defense that targets the boost, ascent, mid-course and terminal phases of missile trajectory. Furthermore, he notes the issue – left over from the last century -- of "locking up" missile defense technology from our allies must vanish, erasing the last vestiges of old Cold War restrictions.
Editor's note:
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
Print Page 
Forward Page 
|
| All Rights Reserved © 2012 NewsMax.Com |