Response to Lt. General Kadish
UCS response to his September 8 testimony concerning our Countermeasures report
September 29, 2000
Lt. General Ronald T. Kadish, USAF
Department of Defense
Ballistic Missile Defense Organization
7100 Defense Pentagon
Washington, DC 20301-7100
FAX: (703) 614-2404
Dear Lt. General Kadish,
We are writing to respond to statements you made in your September 8 testimony before the House Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs, and International Relations of the Committee on Government Reform concerning the technical analysis of countermeasures that we recently co-authored, Countermeasures: A Technical Evaluation of the Operational Effectiveness of the Planned US National Missile Defense System.
We are writing for three reasons, which we will first outline and then discuss in more detail below.
First, one of your main disagreements with our report is about how difficult it would be for emerging missile states to deploy the countermeasures we analyze. This is an important question, since the effectiveness of the NMD system hinges on it. There is no reason to speculate about this issue; the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO) can and should answer this question in a rigorous, scientific way. As we recommend in the Countermeasures report, the United States should establish an independent countermeasures "Red Team" to develop, build, and test countermeasures using information and technology available to emerging missile states. Indeed, the nation should not be asked to invest tens of billions of dollars in a system that would only be effective if BMDO's assumptions about the ability of an attacker to deploy countermeasures are correct, when those assumptions can be -- but have not been -- tested.
Second, you also claim our report underestimates the capability of the proposed NMD system. Our report considers the C3 system with 250 interceptors based at two sites and all the planned sensors and other components described by BMDO, which is intended to defend against an attack using "complex" countermeasures. Our analysis does not depend on the detailed architecture of this full system but on the capabilities of the components that would comprise it.
In your testimony you state that no one, including you, knows what the final C3 system will look like because the United States has not yet finalized its plans for the system. But if it is true that the C3 system is sufficiently undefined that one cannot judge the effectiveness of the countermeasures we propose, then BMDO's statement that the C3 system will be effective against "complex" countermeasures is merely a goal, and BMDO has no basis for stating that this system would be effective against these countermeasures. Thus, BMDO apparently is willing to deploy the first phase of the system in the hope that it eventually will be able to figure out how to make the system work against realistic countermeasures.
Third, some of your testimony appears to ignore information that was either contained in the countermeasure report itself or that we sent you on August 17 in a detailed memorandum, which contained a draft response to a July 18, 2000 document authored by Uzi Rubin titled "Comments on the UCS Report on Countermeasures." (We later sent you the final response, which is also posted on the UCS web site: www.ucsusa.org/security/response.html.) For example, your testimony downplays the threat of weapons delivered by submunitions by ignoring biological agents, even though our August 17 memo cited calculations indicating that submunitions filled with anthrax could be expected to kill as many people as a nuclear weapon.
We will now take up each of these three issues in more detail.
The difficulty of deploying countermeasures:
In your testimony, you state that our report "...grossly overestimate[s] the countermeasure capabilities of countries like North Korea, Iran, and Iraq..." You also state "I am confident that countermeasures initially deployed by states of concern will not be sophisticated enough to fool all of the discrimination capabilities employed by the planned NMD system."
However, your testimony contains an important observation that undercuts your statement about the countermeasure capabilities of emerging missile states. You note that to build a missile system, an attacker would face "significant challenges in designing and building the booster, integrating guidance, navigation, and control, and engineering the RV. All of these elements then have to be integrated into the whole system. The development of warheads is especially difficult, mainly because of the challenges posed by atmospheric reentry and the requirement to use technologies not commercially available."
Yet, only countries that could do all of these things successfully would pose a threat to the United States by long-range ballistic missiles. It is precisely because these countries would have a demonstrated technical capability in all these areas that we believe they could build the kinds of countermeasures we described. The United States must assume that the countermeasure capabilities of emerging missile states will be consistent with their missile capabilities, or it will end up with a defense that has little or no capability against real-world threats. Every country that has built long-range missiles has had a parallel program to develop countermeasures. Even if it had not already begun to do so, an emerging missile state would have at least five to seven years to develop countermeasures before even the first phase of the NMD system would become operational.
Our observations and analysis are supported by the September 1999 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States through 2015. This document, which is the most detailed, publicly available official document that discusses countermeasures that would be available to emerging missile states, states that these countries would probably rely on "readily available technology...to develop...countermeasures" and that they could do so "by the time they flight test their missiles." Moreover, it lists several readily available technologies that emerging missile states could use to develop countermeasures.
Further evidence that BMDO is underestimating the countermeasure capability of potential attackers comes from earlier testimony you gave before the Senate Armed Services Committee on 29 June 2000. In response to questions from Senator Jack Reed, you stated that the defined C1 threat does not include "many" of the countermeasures technologies identified in the 1999 NIE as being readily available to emerging missile states. The targets the NMD system will be tested against exclude the very countermeasures that the US intelligence community has stated would be available by the time the missile threat exists.
As your testimony indicates, another key issue is how much missile flight testing would be required to develop countermeasures, since flight testing could provide the United States with evidence of what countermeasures an emerging missile state was developing. We believe that an emerging missile state could develop and deploy the three countermeasures we consider in our report using only ground testing and -- where appropriate -- testing using airplanes.
These issues must be sorted out before proceeding with deployment. Fortunately, there is a rigorous way to gain some understanding of these issues, which is to establish an independent countermeasures "Red Team" to develop, build, and test countermeasures using information and technology available to emerging missile states. The United States has not yet established such an effort.
As you know, there is already a partial precedent for such an effort within BMDO: the Countermeasures Hands-On Program (CHOP). But rather than rely, as CHOP does, on brief stints of young scientists, engineers, and military officers not trained in missile defense or countermeasures, we recommend a staff that reflects the kind of in-house expertise an emerging missile state is likely to have. We also recommend that the funding, staff, and direction of the group be independent of BMDO, to avoid conflicts of interest.
The results of this group should then be used to structure the testing program. In particular, the planned NMD system should be tested against the countermeasures the Red Team determines would be available to potential attackers. Unlike currently planned tests, the defense should not have complete knowledge of the countermeasures it will be facing.
The capabilities of the US NMD:
In your September 8 testimony, you state that "I do not believe the [Countermeasures] report gives proper credit to the capabilities of the proposed NMD system, nor does it take into account that our discrimination and lethality capabilities will evolve as the threat matures." We did consider several modifications to the NMD system that would not require major hardware changes but might serve as counter-countermeasures. However, our analysis assumes that the basic NMD configuration is fairly well-set, because the United States is developing a particular system and is fairly close to a potential deployment decision. Thus, the system will use hit-to-kill interceptors guided by infrared and possibly visible-light sensors, upgraded early-warning and X-band radars, and space-based infrared and visible-light sensors.
Your testimony states that the NMD system would rely on a network of several different kinds of sensors to discriminate the warhead, that advances in technology will allow these sensors to be extremely sensitive, and that advances in computing power will permit the NMD system to analyze and integrate large amounts of data from these various sensors. However, the mere existence of different and accurate sensors is not enough-these sensors must provide information that can defeat countermeasures. Our report specifically considers the set of sensors that your office has stated will be part of the C3 NMD system, which is intended to defeat complex countermeasures. Our analysis further assumes that those sensors work perfectly (i.e., that their performance is limited by the laws of physics but not by engineering constraints), and that the system has all the computer processing capability it needs to integrate and process all the data coming from the various sensors. Thus, your comments about advances in sensor technology and computing power are not relevant to our conclusions. Our analysis shows that the countermeasures we analyze would be able to defeat the full set of these sensors.
Your statement that an attacker "would not be capable of testing the chosen countermeasures without revealing telltale characteristics to the NMD system" is not substantiated by evidence or analysis. The United States cannot base its effort to build an effective defense on the assumption that it may be able to collect detailed information about an attacker's countermeasures. In fact, the United States is likely to know very little about the countermeasures a potential attacker might deploy.
As you point out, emerging missile states do not have test ranges that they could use to observe flight tests, so there is little point for them to conduct flight tests that US intelligence agencies might observe. In addition, an attacker will understand the importance of not divulging such information. As the Rumsfeld Commission Report emphasized, emerging missile states are increasingly able to conceal sensitive activities. The countermeasures we described could be deployed with considerable confidence without flight testing.
Moreover, the offense has important advantages over the defense in the competition between countermeasures and counter-countermeasures. Because the United States is a relatively open society, and the NMD system must go through a multi-year test program in advance of its deployment, the attacker will know a great deal about what sensors and components the NMD system will incorporate. The attacker will have this information well in advance of US deployment, and can tailor its countermeasures to the specific NMD system. Even if the United States made major hardware changes to the planned NMD system to counter some of the countermeasures we discuss, it would take years to develop, test and deploy the new hardware, giving the attacker both the information and time needed to take additional steps to defeat it.
Erroneous information in your testimony:
Below we discuss in more detail some of the points in your testimony that appear to be based on erroneous information about our Countermeasures Report:
1. You incorrectly state that chemical weapon submunitions were "highlighted" in our report on Countermeasures. This is not true. While our report discusses both chemical and biological agents, we specifically state in Chapter 2 that chemical agents may not deserve the title "weapons of mass destruction," but that anthrax spores certainly do. In our August 17 memo to you, we discussed the results of calculations by Dr. Dean Wilkening of Stanford University that showed that attacking a city with early-release submunitions carrying anthrax could result in as many deaths as a nuclear weapon of the size used on Hiroshima.
Yet, in your testimony you discuss only chemical agents and argue that submunitions might disperse these agents to an extent that would seriously degrade their lethality. You completely ignore the lethality of biological agents in submunitions, which is the real issue.
Moreover, in your testimony you state that "the agents in early release submunitions also will have to survive atmospheric reentry," suggesting there is a question about whether this can be done. But BMDO apparently believes that an attacker would be capable of developing heatshields for nuclear warheads and unitary chemical and biological warheads, since intercepting these are stated goals of the NMD system. Is there a reason BMDO believes this technology could not be applied to submunitions? We show in considerable detail in our report that heatshields for submunitions can be built using materials that have been available for over 30 years. In fact, in his July 18, 2000 Comments on our Countermeasures Report, Uzi Rubin notes: "The submunitions described in the report -- spheres and spherical tipped cones -- are viable. They are well protected against the thermal stresses of reentry, and will reach the ground in one piece..."
You further state that "If our defense forced a state of concern to adopt submunitions, we would have succeeded in preventing that state from using nuclear weapons, which cannot be deployed in this way." This makes no sense from the point of view of the attacker. If an attacker wanted to deliver biological agent, it could use submunitions, which would defeat the NMD system. If, on the other hand, the attacker wanted to deliver a nuclear weapon, it would use a different countermeasure, such as the other countermeasures we analyze.
2. You state in your testimony that "The complexity of surrounding an RV with a balloon and having it mimic decoy balloons is a technically challenging operation." We are surprised that you have raised the issue of placing a balloon around the warhead. Our August 17 memo to you included a detailed description of how that could be done using simple technology, such as valves like those on inflatable air mattresses. (In May, in response to a request for more information on this issue, we provided a similar description to analysts in the Program Analysis & Evaluation office within the Office of the Secretary of Defense.) This is not a difficult task for a country capable of successfully building a long-range missile and nuclear warhead. We believe this issue should be laid to rest. We discuss the issue of whether a warhead in a balloon could be distinguished from a decoy balloon in great detail in our report.
3. In discussing the cooled-shroud countermeasure, you state that "it would be ineffective against NMD radar and optical sensors, which are designed to gather and refine information on the target throughout the course of its flight and pass information on the target's characteristics and location through the IFICS to the EKV up until just moments before impact." However, as we discuss in detail in our report, this countermeasure is not intended to defeat these sensors, but only to defeat the final infrared homing of the kill vehicle. The NMD radars and SBIRS-low sensors would be able to see the warhead but the information they gather is not accurate enough to support the final homing, which must be done by sensors on the kill vehicle. The kill vehicle has optical sensors that are apparently not used for homing, since they were not able to guide the kill vehicle when the infrared sensors failed in the second intercept test (IFT-4). In any event, we show in our report that an attacker could launch the warhead on trajectories that remain in darkness so that the warhead would not reflect any light that could be seen by the kill vehicle, even if it did use optical sensors for homing.
4. In your testimony, you suggest that the experience of the United Kingdom gives an indication of how difficult it would be for an emerging missile state to develop and especially to test countermeasures. You note that in the 1970s and 1980s, the United Kingdom spent $2 billion dollars and took more than ten years to develop countermeasures for their submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and that they depended on the use of US test ranges to flight-test these countermeasures. But the countermeasures in question were quite sophisticated and had to face a Soviet defense that used interceptors armed with large-yield nuclear warheads, with a kill range measured in hundreds of meters, not tens of centimeters.
5. You state that "the added weight of countermeasures would reduce the missile's range capabilities....The absence of a capability to put several warheads or constructed decoys on a bus would mean that it might not be possible for the state of concern to launch much more than small lightweight decoys, such as balloons, together with the payload." The issue of the weight penalty for a given countermeasure is subject to analysis. In our report we estimate the weight penalties of the countermeasures we consider and show that they are not prohibitive. One of the reasons we looked in detail at several examples of countermeasures was to be able to make such estimates.
Moreover, adding balloon decoys, as you suggest in your statement, while at the same time disguising the warhead, is precisely one of the countermeasures we consider in detail.
6. Our report does not claim, nor do the authors believe, that the planned NMD system is susceptible "to even the simplest countermeasures," as you state. The network of sensors envisioned for the C3 system would render some countermeasures ineffective. For example, the spherical balloon decoys included in the NMD flight tests thus far are ineffective countermeasures if the attacker does not also use anti-simulation to disguise the warhead. However, it would make no sense for an attacker to choose to deploy those countermeasures.
You state that one must look carefully at the assumptions underlying our report. We would be happy to meet with you to discuss these assumptions. However, it is equally important to look at BMDO's assumptions underlying the NMD system. One such assumption is that an emerging missile state could deploy a long-range missile armed with a nuclear or biological warhead by 2005-07, and at the same time would be able to deploy only trivial countermeasures. Another assumption is that the United States will have intelligence on countermeasures developed by emerging missile states so that it can incorporate counter-countermeasures in the NMD system. We believe both these assumptions are overly optimistic, and should not be the basis on which the United States develops and deploys an NMD system.
We look forward to your response. Please send any communication to Dr. Gronlund (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2 Brattle Square, Cambridge, MA 02238-9105; lgronlund@ucsusa.org, phone: 617-547-5552; fax: 617-864-9405) who will then communicate with the rest of the group.
Sincerely,
| John M. Cornwall Professor Physics Department UCLA |
Lisbeth Gronlund Senior Staff Scientist, UCS Research Fellow Security Studies Program, MIT | |
| Bob Dietz Retired Engineer Lockheed Missile Division |
George N. Lewis Associate Director Security Studies Program, MIT | |
| Steve Fetter Professor, School of Public Affairs University of Maryland |
Theodore A. Postol Professor, Science, Technology, and National Security Policy, MIT | |
| Sherman Frankel Professor, Physics Department University of Pennsylvania |
Andrew M. Sessler Senior Scientist Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory | |
| Richard L. Garwin Philip D. Reed Senior Fellow for Science and Technology Council on Foreign Relations |
David C. Wright Senior Staff Scientist, UCS Research Fellow Security Studies Program, MIT | |
| Kurt Gottfried Professor, Physics Department Cornell University |
cc: Members of the Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs, and International Relations of the House Committee on Government Reform:
| Rep. Christopher Shays (Chair) | Rep. John L. Mica | |
| Rep. Mark Souder (Vice Chair) | Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen | |
| Rep. Thomas Allen | Rep. Bernard Sanders | |
| Rep. Judy Biggert | Rep. Mark Sanford | |
| Rep. Rod Blagojevich | Rep. Janice Schakowsky | |
| Rep. Helen Chenoweth-Hage | Rep. Lee Terry | |
| Rep. Tom Lantos | Rep. John F. Tierney | |
| Rep. John M. McHugh | Rep. Eldolphus Towns | |
| Rep. David McIntosh | Rep. Bob Wise |
