A-to-Z Encyclopedia of National Missile Defense

[Alistair Sim_ Master Mason]

--
A-to-Z Encyclopedia of National Missile Defense

A-F G-L M-R S-Z

http://64.233.161.104/search?q =cache:U-6a9JHio-cJ:www.cfr.or
g/virtual...

Prepared by Patrick Belton
Council on Foreign Relations

A-F

"3+3": The Clinton administration's timeframe for National Missile
Defense development and deployment. In April 1996, the White House
proposed to allocate three years to researching and developing on
missile defense, and if warranted, three further years for deploying a
system.

Abrahamson, James A.: Air Force Lieutenant General who served as the
first director of the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization, which
he directed from April 1984 until January 1989. He had previously
(since November 1981) been an associate administrator of the Space
Transportation System, and in that capacity he had been responsible
for
the United States's space shuttle program. In his end of tour report
filed in 1989, General Abrahamson asserted that a space-based
defensive
architecture based on the "Brilliant Pebbles" concept could be
deployed
within five years, at a cost of $25 billion or less. A profile of
Lieutenant General Abrahamson may be read online at
http://www.acq.osd.mil/bmdo/bm dolink/pdf/abe.pdf. His successor as
director was Air Force Lieutenant General George L. Monahan.

Active and Interactive Midcourse Discrimination Techniques: Two
possible ways an NMD system may differentiate between threatening
objects and decoys. Active discrimination systems work by
electromagnetic irradiation of a potential target, so that it can be
determined from characteristics of the reflected radiation whether the
object is a decoy or a threatening object. Radar and laser radar (also
called ladar) are two tools that can be employed in this form of
discrimination.

Interactive discrimination is used to describe other techniques that
perturb a target in ways other than irradiating it, and then observe
the target's reactions. The ways in which this may be done include
laser thermal tagging (heating the object and observing the rate at
which its temperature rises), impulse tagging (using a laser to cause
the object to recoil), and use of neutral particle beams (to produce
electrons or neutrons in the target).

Aegis: The U.S. Navy's current anti-missile system, devised to protect
carrier groups against attacks from rockets, aircraft, and
air-breathing missiles.

Air Force Space Command: operates the early-warning phased array radar
system which detects and tracks sea-launched ballistic missiles and
intercontinental ballistic missiles. Information received from
early-warning radars in Cape Cod Air Force Station in Massachusetts
and
Beale Air Force Base in California is transmitted to the Space
Command's Missile Warning and Space Control Centers at Cheyenne
Mountain Air Force Base in Colorado. A third early warning radar is
soon to become functional in Clear Air Force Station in Alaska. Upon
learning through the early warning radar (and through a system of
early
warning satellites) of a missile launch against the United States, the
Space Command would then activate the ground-based radar system at
Grand Forks to track the attacking missile and launch interceptors
against it.

The Air Force Space Command is one of three components of the U.S.
Space Command, one of the U.S.'s nine unified combatant commands and
the one that will be tasked with the operation of the ballistic
defense
system. The commander of Space Command will therefore be the
individual
who will direct the use of the NMD system in the event of a ballistic
missile attack upon the United States. The commander of Space Command
(or CINCSPACECOM) historically also serves as commander in chief of
the
U.S.-Canadian joint North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD;
the commander is CINCNORAD). The present CINCNORAD is General Ralph
"Ed" Eberhart.

There are also space commands within the Army (see website,
www.armyspace.army.mil) and the Navy (www.navspace.navy.mil)
overseeing
those branches' contribution to the theater and national missile
defense programs. The Army Space Command is under the leadership of
Lt.
Gen. Joseph Cosumano, and the Navy Space Command that of Read Admiral
Richard Mauldin.

Airborne Laser, or ABL: Weapons system which would be capable of
destroying attacking missiles while the missiles are in their boost
phase (see boost phase intercept), before the missiles have left the
airspace of the country that launched them, and before their warheads
have separated. The technology to successfully destroy missiles in
flight with a directed high-energy laser beam has existed since 1977,
when Cleveland-based TRW demonstrated that capability in a test.
Constructing and deploying an airborne laser system presently forms
the
focal point of the third projected phase of the Defense Department's
development of ballistic missile defense. (The first two phases
correspond to the deployment of theater missile defenses and that of a
national missile defense.) The airborne laser weapon system program's
goal is to produce an airborne laser capable of being integrated onto
an airborne platform that can shoot down theater ballistic missiles at
ranges of several hundred kilometers. The Air Force envisages a fleet
of up to seven Airborne Lasers that are capable of quick and
short-notice deployment to protect threatened allies, airfields,
ports,
and other facilities necessary for the buildup of follow-on forces.
The
program's modified Boeing 747-400F freighter aircraft will fly over
friendly territory at altitudes at 40,000 feet (above the clouds).
They
will use an infrared search and track system to acquire and track
missiles, and will destroy them using a chemical oxygen iodine laser
(to be produced by TRW). Problems posed by adverse weather and the
propagation of beams within the atmosphere have been difficult
obstacles for long-range lasers; some but not all of these technical
problems have been solved.

In November 1996, the Air Force awarded a $1.1 billion program
definition and risk reduction contract to a consortium formed by
Boeing, TRW, and Lockheed Martin, to develop and flight-test a laser
weapon system. The Air Force is overseeing the program's development
from Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico. An antiballistic laser
test
against a boost-phase ballistic missile is planned for 2002. The first
three aircraft could possibly achieve operational capacity by 2006,
and
a fleet of seven aircraft may possibly be operational by 2008.

Anti-Ballistic Missile, or ABM: A missile capable of detecting,
intercepting, and destroying attacking ballistic missiles. The United
States's first functional anti-ballistic missile was the Nike-Zeus
missile; the Soviet Union's was the Galosh. See national missile
defense and history of national missile defense.

Anti-Ballistic Missile (or ABM) Treaty: Agreement between the United
States and Soviet Union in which the two countries agreed to limit
their ground-based missile defense systems while prohibiting other
types of missile defense systems. In particular, the U.S. and U.S.S.R.
agreed to prohibit the development, testing, and deployment of sea,
air, or space-based systems, along with that of mobile land-based
systems. The countries' ground-based systems were limited to two
missile defense sites which would have no more than one hundred
interceptors each. These sites could not form the basis of a
nationwide
missile defense, and no early warning radar could be installed other
than systems deployed on the periphery and facing outward. Each party
has the right to withdraw from the treaty on six months' notice. The
agreement was negotiated between 1969 and 1972. A 1974 protocol then
reduced to one the number of sites that either country could deploy.
The United States's site under the ABM Treaty was the Safeguard system
in Grand Forks, Dakota, which was only operational for a short period
in 1975-1976. In 1997, a Memorandum of Understanding designated
Russia,
Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan as the successor states to the Soviet
Union for the purposes of the treaty.

A debate over the interpretation of the treaty began in April 1985,
when the Reagan administration introduced its "broad" interpretation
of
the ABM, which held that antimissile technologies not in existence at
the time of the treaty could be tested unless the U.S. and U.S.S.R.
specifically agreed to limit them. A "narrow" interpretation, holding
instead that development and testing of new technologies would be
prohibited unless the parties agreed otherwise, was espoused, for
different reasons, by both the Soviet Union and the U.S. Senate (the
latter feeling that the administration's reinterpretation of the
treaty
impinged upon its prerogatives to approve and interpret treaties).

Should the United States wish to build a limited national missile
defense system without withdrawing from the ABM Treaty, it would have
to observe a number of restrictions. First, as noted above, it could
field no more than 100 interceptors, and at only one site. It is
possible that the United States could seek to terminate the 1974
protocol so that two deployment sites would again be permitted.
Second,
each ABM interceptor could only be equipped with a single
exoatmospheric kill vehicle, which would make it very difficult to
develop a cost-effective defense against MIRVed ICBMs or ones which
employed decoy technologies and countermeasures. Third, the radar
guiding the interceptor (see phased array radar system) must be
located
within 150 kilometers of the launch site, a provision which if
followed
would make protection of Alaska and Hawaii difficult. Finally, while
the treaty does not limit theater missile defense systems, it is
likely
that other countries would oppose a number of systems the U.S. would
deploy in a theater missile defense system by claiming they were, in
fact, national missile defense technologies.

The text of the ABM treaty may be read online at
www.fas.org/nuke/control/abmt/ index.html. Other documents associated
with the treaty can be found online as well, at
www.fas.org/nuke/control/abmt/ text/abm2.htm.

Anti-Satellite Weapon, or ASAT: A countermeasure which would likely be
deployed against a satellite-based antimissile technology. In 1989,
the
likelihood that the Soviet Union would deploy an anti-satellite system
to frustrate the satellite-based interception scheme upon which SDI
was
based led SDIO planners to substitute a system of more numerous and
smaller, "Brilliant Pebble" interceptors for the fewer garage-sized
orbiting interceptors called for in the original SDI design.

Atmospheric and Exoatmospheric Interception: Two environments in which
it is possible for an interceptor to destroy an attacking missile or
warhead. In exoatmospheric interception, the missiles or warheads are
destroyed during the midcourse phase of their trajectory, when they
are
in the upper atmosphere or above it (typically at a height of 270
kilometers or above). In atmospheric (also referred to as
endo-atmospheric) interception, missiles or their warheads are
attacked
during their reentry phase in the lower and denser atmosphere.
Proponents of atmospheric interception have argued that inside the
atmosphere, air resistance strips away decoys (see decoy technology
and
countermeasures) and simplifies the task of finding the attacking
warhead or warheads.

A third possible phase of missile interception is the boost phase, in
which missiles are being accelerated by their rocket boosters (see
boost-phase interception).

The U.S.'s Safeguard antimissile system which was briefly deployed in
1975-6 contained two nuclear interceptor devices: an exoatmospheric
system known as Spartan, and an atmospheric system called Sprint.

Ballistic Missile: A rocket-powered missile that follows a parabolic
trajectory and is unpowered through all but the initial segment of its
flight. The first operational ballistic missile was the V-2 which Nazi
Germany employed against Great Britain and the Low Countries from
September 1944 until March 1945. At present, the key offensive
ground-launched ballistic missile in the U.S. arsenal is the Minuteman
ICBM; the chief submarine-launched ballistic missile is the Trident.
All ballistic missiles presently deployed are capable of being
equipped
with Multiple Independently Targetable Reentry Vehicles (or MIRVs).
Thirty-four nations field a ballistic missile of some variety; for a
chart of the numbers and types of ballistic missiles in various
national arsenals, please see
www.ceip.org/files/projects/np p/resources/ballisticmissilech art.htm.

All long-range missiles fall into the ballistic category. The U.S.
Department of Defense defines several varieties of ballistic missile:
Battlefield Short-Range Ballistic Missiles are those having ranges of
up to 94 miles (150 km); Short-Range Ballistic Missiles, or SRBMs,
have
ranges of less than 688 miles (1,100 km); Medium-Range Ballistic
Missiles, or MRBMs, possess ranges from 688-1,719 miles (1,100-2,750
km); Intermediate-Range Ballistic Missiles have ranges from
1,719-3,437
miles (2,750-5,500 km); and Intercontinental-Range Ballistic Missiles
have ranges of 3,438 miles (5,500 km) and above. Compare with Cruise
Missiles.

Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, or BMDO: Established by
Department of Defense Directive 5134.9 as the successor agency to the
Strategic Defense Initiative Organization, the BMDO manages the U.S.
Ballistic Missile Defense program. As such, the agency is charged with
developing and deploying both Theater Missile Defenses and National
Missile Defense systems, as well as conducting research on more
advanced ballistic missile defense technologies. The current director
of the BMDO is Air Force Lieutenant General Ronald T. Kadish. (See the
organization's web site at
http://www.acq.osd.mil/bmdo/bm dolink/html/bmdolink.html, and
Lieutenant
Generald Kadish's profile at
http://www.acq.osd.mil/bmdo/bm dolink/pdf/kadish.pdf.)

Batttle Management Command and Control, or BMC2: Battle management has
two parts: analyzing data on the state of a battle, and making
decisions about how to aim weapons and allocate resources. Tasks
within
battle management include command and communication, kill assessment,
and the tracking of targets. In the context of NMD, BMC2 refers to the
management and data processing structure that controls and operates
the
NMD system in the event of a launch against the United States. BMC2
(which is a subelement of the BMC3 element) includes decision support
systems, battle management systems and displays, and situation
awareness information.

Battle Management, Command, Control, and Communications, or BMC3: The
integrating hardware, software, and organizational structure which
will
allow the various elements of National Missile Defense to work
together
as a system and permit the Commander in Chief of the North American
Air
Defense/United States Space Command (CINCNORAD/CINCSPACE) to control
the operations of the integrated NMD system. The two most significant
components of the BMC3 system are a Battle Management, Command and
Control (BMC2) element that will track targets, plan engagements, and
direct and monitor the various facets of a missile defense battle; and
an In-flight Interceptor Communications System (IFICS) to link the
communications between the BM/C2 and the exoatmospheric kill vehicle
(KV) during the latter's flight toward its target. A prototype IFICS
is
installed at the Kwajalein Missile Range.

Battlefield Short-Range Ballistic Missile: Conventional usage defines
a
Battlefield Short-Range Missile, or BSRM, as a ballistic missile with
a
range of below 94 miles / 150 km.

Beale Air Force Base: Headquarters of the Air Force's 9th
Reconnaissance Wing, responsible for operating U-2 squadrons and an
intelligence processing facility. A PAVE PAWS early warning radar
located at Beale plays a key role in the NMD system's capability to
detect attacking ballistic missiles. Brigadier General Stanley Gorenc
is commander of the base. See the base's web site at www.beale.af.mil.

Boeing: Seattle- and St. Louis-based prime contractor for the NMD
project. In April 1998, the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization
awarded Boeing a long-term contract to coordinate the entire missile
defense effort. The contract entrusts Boeing with the design,
development, and testing of NMD components, and their integration into
a single system. Boeing has subcontracted out several components of
the
NMD system; it subcontracted to Raytheon the development of the
exoatmospheric kill vehicle in December 1998, and has also
subcontracted to Raytheon the X-band radar and upgraded early warning
radar. Boeing is itself acting as the lead contractor for development
of the ground-based interceptor, battle management, command, control,
and communications system, and interfaces to space-based infrared
system satellites.

Boeing holds Defense Department contracts for the development of
several other antimissile technologies, including an airborne laser
system (together with TRW and
Lockheed Martin).

Boeing's web site for its activities as NMD prime contractor is
www.boeing.com/defense-space/s pace/nmd/index.html.

Boost-Phase Interception: Boost phase is the part of a ballistic
missile's trajectory in which the rocket booster fires. Boost phase
interception describes missile defense systems that intercept and
destroy ballistic missiles during their boost phase soon after they
are
launched, when they are being boosted into orbit. Interception in this
phase is technologically more difficult, but in several respects more
desirable, than midcourse phase systems currently under development.
(Midcourse phase systems seek to destroy incoming missiles later in
their flight, outside the earth's atmosphere; see exoatmospheric kill
vehicle). There are two principal advantages to boost phase
interception. The missile is still over enemy territory, so damage
caused by falling debris or undestroyed weapon elements would be
inflicted on the firing country. Second, the warhead has not yet
separated from the payload launch vehicle (making for a larger
target),
and decoy technologies and countermeasures would not yet have been
deployed. Boost-phase interception is made technically difficult by
the
boost phase's short duration (for a typical ICBM, lasting 250 to 400
seconds from launch). A boost-phase interceptor would need to be
deployed close to the launch site as part of a theater missile defense
system, and would have to be capable of very quick acceleration. The
interception task is facilitated by the fact that the plume produced
by
boosting missiles is readily discernible. Other directions work on
boost phase interception has taken to this point have been the
development of airborne laser systems and interceptor-equipped
unmanned
aerial vehicles which would fly over hostile territory at high
altitudes with long endurance. The limited range of boost-phase
systems
may have a political advantage in signaling that the missile defense
systems are directed only against countries near which they are
deployed. At present, the Air Force and Navy have concluded that
boost-phase interception systems are technically feasible, but the
number of aircraft required to provide an effective defense capability
is excessive. The United States and Israel are collaborating in the
development of unmanned aerial vehicle technology.

Booster Vehicle: See payload launch vehicle. A booster is a rocket
intended either to place a ballistic missile in its trajectory toward
a
target or to launch a satellite or space vehicle into orbit.

Brilliant Eyes, also known as the Space Based Infrared System or Space
and Missile Tracking System: A proposed system that would track
ballistic missiles in flight from launch to re-entry in support of
theater missile defense efforts. It consists of a constellation of
small, low-cost satellites orbiting at a low altitude. Brilliant Eyes
would provide precise estimates of missiles' trajectories, thereby
helping interceptors acquire the missiles. The system would also
provide theater-level information about the position of missile
launchers, assisting counterstrikes that would prevent the launchers
from firing more missiles. During peacetime, the system will monitor
ballistic missile tests around the world and keep track of the
positions of satellites, spacecraft, and space debris to help prevent
collisions.

So-called Brilliant technologies were proposed in 1989 to answer
problems posed by the costliness and vulnerability of space-based
missile defense systems based on small numbers of large, expensive
satellites. In contrast, both Brilliant Eyes and Brilliant Pebbles use
miniaturized computers and sensors to give smaller, more inexpensive
satellites capabilities that previously were possessed only by larger
satellites. With a larger number of satellites in orbit, it becomes
more difficult for a hostile country to disable the missile defense
system by using anti-satellite weapons.

Brilliant Pebbles: A proposed system of space-based interceptors. From
1987 to 1989, SDI planners had planned to build a small number of
large, vulnerable Space Based Interceptors, which critics argued would
be vulnerable to anti-satellite attacks by hostile countries. In 1989,
SDIO chief James Abrahamson released an end-of-tour report claiming
that a space-based defense system based on many small interceptors
could be ready in five years at a cost of $25 billion or less. In this
plan, approximately 4,600 small, hard to locate Brilliant Pebble
interceptors were to orbit over appropriate regions of the earth.
These
pebbles would be capable of homing in on and destroying incoming
hostile warheads without guidance from outside sources. Having no
warheads, Brilliant Pebbles would rely solely on the kinetic energy of
their impact with an incoming missile to destroy the missile (see
hit-to-kill). A pebble would be small (3 feet, 3 inches in diameter,
weighing 100 pounds), inexpensive (an estimated $1.4 million each,
with
an expected operational lifetime of 10 years), and, by virtue of their
large number, much less vulnerable to anti-satellite weapon
countermeasures. In February 1990, the SDIO estimated that using
Brilliant Pebbles instead of a Space-Based Interceptor would reduce
the
costs of the antimissile system by $14 billion to $55.3 billion.
Brilliant Pebble development was halted by the Missile Defense Act of
1991, which changed the emphasis of the missile defense program to
protecting against accidental or unauthorized launches and Third World
attacks. The Act explicitly directed that Brilliant Pebbles not be
part
of any initial deployment.

The major criticism of the Brilliant Pebbles design has concerned the
political feasibility of placing thousands of military satellites into
space. Additionally, the large number of Pebbles would likely impose
strains on satellite tracking systems, making nonmilitary uses of
space
more difficult and hazardous.

Capability Level of NMD: The Ballistic Missile Defense Office plans to
construct a missile defense system that will evolve through three
capability levels. Capability 1 represents a defense against the least
sophisticated threats. The threshold threat for this level is said
(all
threshold details are classified) to consist of an attack of five
single-warhead missiles with unsophisticated decoys that could be
discriminated, plus chaff, obscurant particles, flares, jammers, and
other countermeasures. A Capability 1 system would have 20 operational
ground-based interceptors. The Bush Administration and legislation
passed by Congress have called for a Capability 1 defense to be
operational within three years of the initial deployment of missile
defense. The current target date for deploying the Capability 1 system
is 2005.

Capability 2 represents a defense against authorized, unauthorized, or
accidental attack by sophisticated payloads. The threshold threat for
a
Capability 2 system is said to be an attack of five single-warhead
missiles, each with either four credible decoys that could not be
discriminated (all of which would have to be intercepted), or a larger
number of decoys that could be discriminated; plus chaff, obscurant
particles, flares, jammes, and other countermeasures. (Before the
expanded Ballistic Missile Command, Control, and Communications
package
is added, the system 100 interceptors will operate at an intermediate
level called Expanded Capability 1. The target date for deploying this
level is 2007.)

Capability 3 denotes the ability to defend against more serious
attacks
by sophisticated payloads. The objective associated with this level is
to defend against an attack of twenty single-warhead missiles, each of
which could have either five credible decoys that could not be
discriminated or a larger number of less sophisticated decoys that
could be discriminated; plus chaff, obscurant particles, flares,
jammers, and other countermeasures.

The Capability 3 system is planned to have 125 interceptors at each of
2 sites, in Alaska and North Dakota; 3 command centers; 5
communications relay stations; 15 radars (6 early warning and 9 X-band
or high resolution UHF); and 29 satellites (Spaced Based Infrared High
and Low.) The target date for deploying the Capability 3 system is now
2011.

China and National Missile Defense: Along with Russia (see Russia and
National Missile Defense), China has been the most outspoken opponent
of the planned U.S. missile defense system.

Many analysts speculate that China's real concern is not the loss of
its ability to deter an all-out nuclear attack from the U.S., but
rather losing the ability to deter the U.S. against assisting Taiwan
in
the event of a mainland Chinese attack. Under any scenario in which
mainland China attempts to take over Taiwan by force, it will need to
establish air and sea superiority-which is impossible if U.S. aircraft
carriers are positioned in the Taiwan Strait.

It is therefore in China's interests to try to convince the U.S. that
Chinese military hardliners would attempt to initiate a missile attack
on the U.S. if the U.S. attempts to defend Taiwan against a mainland
attack. In 1995, Chinese General Xiong Guangkai told a U.S. official
that "In the end, you care more about Los Angeles than you do about
Taipei." America's will to defend Taiwan would indeed be reduced by
such a threat of Chinese nuclear retaliation, but only if those
threats
are credible. Since a Chinese missile attack on the U.S. would expose
China to retaliatory strikes, these threats only remain believable to
the extent China's leaders can cultivate fears that hard-line elements
in its army would indeed be sufficiently impassioned to launch a
nuclear attack. This task is made more difficult in the presence of a
U.S. missile shield. China therefore has strong reasons to attempt to
stall the development of missile defense; on the other hand, if this
argument is correct, the security of East Asia and the Taiwan Strait
would be increased by the shield.

Chinese diplomats have argued vociferously that NMD promotes global
strategic imbalance and U.S. domination of world politics. Their
statements typically cite the importance of the Anti-Ballistic Missile
treaty in creating an environment for arms reduction. With respect to
the Taiwan Strait, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs argues that
providing theater missile defense systems to Taiwan gravely encroaches
upon China's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and is a serious
interference in China's internal affairs that will "definitely meet
with strong opposition from the Chinese people." It has also argued
that cooperation in the building of TMD systems by other Asian-Pacific
countries goes "beyond their legitimate defense needs."

The Chinese government has released several joint statements with the
government of Russia opposing missile defense (see Russia and National
Missile Defense). In April 2001, Chinese Ambassador to the U.N.
Conference on Disarmament Hu Xiaodi said the U.S. missile defense
would
become an "offensive arms multiplier" for the U.S., and would disrupt
disarmament efforts around the world. China has repeatedly acted to
dissuade India from backing U.S. missile defense plans. Zhou Gang, the
Chinese Ambassador to New Delhi, was quoted as saying that India might
have ignored certain realities and not analyzed the project adequately
before giving an initially positive response to it. (See India and
National Missile Defense)

See the website of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/; a summary of the Foreign Ministry's policy
positions at www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/c413.html ; and the Russian-Chinese
joint statement of July 18, 2000, at
www.ceip.org/files/projects/np p/resources/RussiaChinaMissile
DefStatem....

Clinton and National Missile Defense (and Clinton): Upon entering
office in 1993, President Clinton abandoned the national missile
defense program of the Bush and Reagan administrations, based on the
argument that developing such a technology was inconsistent with the
ABM Treaty and the strategic stability that had permitted reductions
in
offensive nuclear forces. With the Republican takeover of Congress in
1995, the issue returned to the political agenda. President Clinton
responded by increasing funding for research and development of
missile
defense technology, giving the program the goal of being able to
deploy
a defense system within three years, should the intelligence community
predict that a rogue state would be capable at the end of attacking
the
United States at the end of that time. In summer 1998, the Rumsfeld
Commission reported that North Korea and Iran could develop a
long-range ICBM with little warning. Congressional Republicans
responded by passing the National Missile Defense Deployment Act of
1999, directing the government to deploy a missile defense system "as
soon as technologically feasible." However, within the next year, a
successful summit between North and South Korea, the election of a
reformist parliament in Iran, and an unsuccessful test in early 2000
all suggested that neither the state of national missile defense
technology nor the level of threat in the international system was
appropriate for moving toward deployment. After a third failed NMD
test
in July 2000, President Clinton decided to defer to his successor the
ability to decide whether or not to deploy a missile defense system.
While some analysts criticized President Clinton's straddling of the
issue as indecisive, other commentators suggested that his decisions
were the only correct ones given the uncertainties about the evolving
threat and the readiness of technology.

Cobra Dane: A radar installation located on the island of Shemya,
Alaska, at Eareckson Air Force Station. Cobra Dane was first deployed
in 1977, and tracks and collects data on test and actual ICBM and SLBM
launches. Data collected from Cobra Dane play an important role in
monitoring other nations' compliance with the START 2 and INF
treaties.
A shortcoming of Cobra Dane is its unidirectionality, which results in
gaps in its surveillance area.

Command, Control and Communications, or C3: See Battle Management
Command, Control, and Communications.

Cooper, Henry: Third director of the Strategic Defense Initiative
Organization, serving from July 1990 until January 1993, and replacing
Lieutenant General George L. Monahan. Ambassador Cooper had previously
served (1987-1989) as the United States's chief negotiator at the
defense and space talks with the Soviet Union, and (1983-1985) as
assistant director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. His
profile may be read online at
www.acq.osd.mil/bmdo/bmdolink/ pdf/cooper.pdf. He was succeeded by
Lieutenant General Malcolm R. O'Neill, whose title became director of
the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization.

Cost of National Missile Defense: Costs for development are presently
projected at $2.5 billion, and the total cost of the program to
deployment is estimated at about $10 billion. Since the architecture
for the NMD system is still in the process of development, there is
uncertainty associated with these costs: such decisions remaining to
be
made as which booster will be selected for the interceptor and the
quantity and type of forward-based early warning radars will have
large
impacts on the final price. The Pentagon expects to be able to release
a more precise estimate by the end of the year.

Countermeasures: See decoy technologies and countermeasures.

Coyle Report: A Pentagon internal report which was critical of missile
defense. Written in August 2000 by Philip Coyle (at the time, Director
of Operational Test and Evaluation), the report finds the program is
too immature to make credible assessments as to its effectiveness or
to
predict deployment dates. It furthermore argues that the tests that
have been conducted to date have been made progressively easier rather
than more challenging, and have relied on artificial scenarios
providing the interceptors with unrealistic advance information about
the missile to be intercepted. The Coyle Report also describes a
malfunction it refers to as "phantom tracks," where the system
accidentally launches interceptors against missiles that do not exist.
The Pentagon refused to show the unclassified report to members of
Congress for eight months, in defiance of a statute requiring the
report be provided to Congress. The Coyle Report can be read online at
www.house.gov/reform/min/pdf/n mdcoylerep.pdf. An analysis by the
Committee on Governmental Reform is also online, at
www.house.gov/reform/min/pdf/n mdcoyleanalysis.pdf. See Government
Studies of Anti-Missile Technology.

Criteria for Evaluating NMD: In signing the National Missile Defense
Act in July 1999, President Clinton elaborated four criteria on which
he said he would decide whether or not to deploy a missile defense
system: the threat, the cost, the technological status of NMD, and
adherence to a renegotiated ABM Treaty. These considerations then
entered public debate as widely accepted criteria for evaluating
missile defense, with the support of the U.S.'s NATO allies at times
being included as an additional consideration. When President Clinton
announced on September 1, 2000, that he would not authorize work
leading to an NMD deployment during his administration, he cited these
four criteria once again. Clinton argued that they had not been
satisfied because of the premature status of technology, Russian
refusal to agree to modify the ABM Treaty, and the reluctance of the
United States's NATO allies to endorse missile defense unless
strategic
stability could be assured through a modified ABM Treaty.

Cruise Missile: An air-breathing missile that follows a straight-line
trajectory to its target and is powered throughout most of its flight.
(Ballistic missiles follow a parabolic path to their destination and
are only powered during the initial portions of their flight.) The
first cruise missile was the German World War II V-1, which was
deployed against Britain and the Low Countries from June 1944 to March
1945. (Its full name was Vergeltungswaffe Eins, or "Vengeance Weapon
One.")

A companion program to SDI named the Air Defense Initiative, or ADI,
was intended to counter air-breathing threats to the United States,
such as cruise missiles and aircraft. In 1996, the responsibility of
developing defenses for cruise missiles as well as ballistic missiles
was assigned to the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization.
Anti-cruise
missile programs had previously been chiefly the domain of the
services. Command and control and radar detection systems will be very
similar for defenses against the two types of missiles (see Battle
Management, Command, Control, and Communications, Early Warning Radar,
and Ground-Based Radar.) On the other hand, infrared and radar systems
are less useful in detecting the lower-flying cruise missiles.
Initiatives such as the aerostat program have been begun to develop
platforms for anti-cruise missile radar systems. Some analysts have
noted that the BMDO budget was not increased when cruise missile
defense was passed to that organization, and as a result, total
spending on missile defense was lowered by the action.

Decoy Technologies and Countermeasures: Penetration aids (sometimes
referred to as penaids) span the range from inexpensive
countermeasures
that employ basic technology to sophisticated measures that mask the
re-entry vehicle's signature of add more signatures to its own.

Among the low-cost penaids that would be within reach of nascent
missile powers are metallic balloons, aluminum chaff, and
intentionally
augmented separation debris. All of these would generate extraneous
radar returns, with the result that the missile defense system would
have to either launch exoatmospheric kill vehicles against each radar
return or formulate some mechanism for differentiating the warhead
from
its surrounding decoys.

More sophisticated penaids include decoy systems that generate the
radar or infrared signals that an actual warhead would emit. A similar
technology underlies radar masking devices, in which antennas receive
microwave radar signals and then retransmit them as stronger and
longer
signals, thereby blinding radars to the object that trails the masker.
Alternatively, a reentry vehicle may shrouded inside a metallic
balloon, thus making it indistinguishable from decoy balloons (radar
being unable to penetrate electric conductors.) The parameters of the
reentry vehicle's infared signature can be changed to confuse infrared
sensors: ways in which this can be done include infrared paint and the
use of insulating devices during ascent to lower the heat of the
vehicle to near ambient temperature. Adding radar paint or reflecting
materials such as aluminum chaff to the reentry vehicle confuses radar
devices in a similar way.

Another technology, known as salvage fusing, can cause an offensive
warhead to detonate if it is struck while traveling to its target. If
a
warhead so equipped is hit by an exoatmospheric kill vehicle while in
earth orbit, then the electro-magnetic pulse and radiation and thermal
effects generated by the explosion will be sufficient to destroy a
significant portion of the world's satellite inventory (according to
Pentagon estimates, $14 billion worth), both through the event and by
subsequent satellite transit through the radiation belts produced by
the explosion. The disabling of space-based sensor systems forming
part
of the missile defense system will provide penetration assistance to
ensuing missiles.

In a separate category of technology are endoatmospheric
countermeasures, which allow reentry vehicles to make their trajectory
erratic and difficult for interceptor systems to predict. Addition of
wings, fins, and thrusters (as with Russia's Project X and India's
Agni
warheads) permits warheads to execute a series of complex maneuvers in
the amosphere and thereby evade interceptors. Stealth technologies
(which would decrease the radar profile presented by the warhead) and
endoatmospheric decoys are additional ways reentry vehicles can avoid
defensive interceptors inside the atmosphere.

The Union of Concerned Scientists has released a report giving further
information on countermeasures. It is available online at
http://www.ucsusa.org/index.ht ml.

Defender: See Project Defender.

Discrimination: The technical challenge of differentiating genuine
threats from decoys. See active and interactive midcourse
discrimination techniques.

Doppler Imaging: The doppler effect increases the wavelength of
radiation emitted or reflected from an object moving towards the
observer, and diminishes the wavelength of radiation from an object
moving away from the observer. Doppler imaging takes advantage of this
shift in the different electromagnetic signals reflected from
different
parts of a spinning or tumbling object to form an image of such an
object. Radar or ladar beams are directed at the target, and a sensor
array gathers the reflected and shifted beams.

Eareckson Air Station: Air base located in Shemya Island, Alaska,
which
is the location of the Cobra Dane phased-array radar. The Pentagon
proposes to build an advanced X-band radar installation at Eareckson
as
the first step in the deployment of a national missile defense system.
See the base's web site at www.elmendorf.af.mil/units/ear eckson.

Early Warning Radar (EWR), and Upgraded Early Warning Radar (UEWR):
The
US Early Warning Radar system detects and tracks ballistic missiles
targeted at the United States with a series of phased-array radars
located in Beale Air Force Base in California, and Cape Cod Air Force
Station in Massachusetts. A third radar is soon to be functional at
Clear Air Force Station in Alaska. These Early Warning Radars will
need
to be upgraded to perform the tasks required of them by the NMD
program. Upgrades would take the form of replacing computers, graphic
displays, communication equipment, and the radar receiver, as well as
rewritting the EWR software to incorporate NMD functions. Once
upgraded, the radars will be able to search for different types of
missiles (including when these are small and near the horizon),
distinguish hostile missiles from innocuous ones, and provide this
information to other elements of the NMD system. Within the NMD
system,
the role of the EWR is to initially acquire complex targets and
provide
precise estimates of their trajectory to the Ground Based Radar.

The United States also makes use of information gained from radar
systems in the United Kingdom and Denmark in its early warning system.
Radar upgrades to the PAVE PAWS system are being developed by
Raytheon's Air/Missile Defense Systems unit in Bedford, Massachusetts,
under government subcontract.

Eberhart, Ralph E. "Ed": Air Force four-star general who is present
commander in chief of North American Aerospace Defense Command and
U.S.
Space Command (NORAD and SCOM, respectively). General Eberhart entered
the Air Force in 1968 after graduating from the U.S. Air Force
Academy.
He served during Operation Desert Shield as commander of the 363rd
Tactical Fighter Wing, and subsequently held positions as commander of
U.S. Forces, Japan, vice Air Force chief of staff, and commander of
Air
Combat Command.

As commander in chief of U.S. Space Command, General Eberhart would be
the principal military officer in charge of a use of a national
missile
defense system in the event of a ballistic missile attack upon the
United States.

European Allies and NMD: See NATO and NMD.

Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle, or EKV: The component of the Ground Based
Interceptor that intercepts an incoming warhead and demolishes the it
by the force of impact in the midcourse (i.e., exoatmospheric) portion
of its trajectory. The kill vehicle must accomplish a number of
complicated tasks to collide with its target, and is for that reason
equipped with onboard seeker, propulsion, communications, guidance,
and
computer systems. The EKV may acquire and intercept its target either
by use of its onboard navigation and target selection systems or by
relying on the guidance of transmissions uplinked from the Battle
Management, Command, Control, and Communications (BMC3) system on the
ground. The BMC3 system provides a series of In-flight Target Updates
to the kill vehicle to assist it in locating the missile and any
debris
and decoys which may surround it (collectively known as the threat
cluster). The kill vehicle will then rely upon an onboard
discrimination capability to determine which object is the designated
target, perhaps aided in this stage by a target object map supplied by
the BMC3 system. The kill vehicle adjusts its trajectory to collide
with the target, and destroys both the target and itself in the force
of the collision.

The cost of an EKV is estimated to fall between $30 million and $35
million. In December 1998, Boeing, the prime contractor for the
National Missile Defense program, subcontracted the EKV project to
Raytheon. Raytheon is developing EKV technology at its Tucson, Arizona
Missile Systems unit, and is under contract to provide 25 EKVs for
tests of National Missile Defense. See Raytheon's EKV project web
site,
http://www.raytheon.com/es/esp roducts/dssekv/dssekv.htm.

Extended Range Interceptor, or ERINT: Interceptor used in the Army's
PAC-3 system, which uses a hit-to-kill principal rather than the
explosive fragmentation warhead used in earlier generations of the
Patriot missile.

First-Strike and Second-Strike Capability: A nation has a first-strike
capacity over a potential adversary when it is capable of destroying
all of the missiles the latter could use to respond to its attack, in
addition to causing significant damage to the opponent's population.
Conversely, a nation has a second-strike capability with respect to a
potential attacker when its nuclear arsenal is of large enough a size
that the attacker could not expect to destroy all of the country's
nuclear weapons in a single strike; the country is then able to
respond
to any nuclear strike on it by launching a second nuclear strike
against its attacker. First-strike capability obtaining between two
states is inherently destabilizing because it gives the weaker country
an incentive to fire its missiles first in a tense tradeoff, before
they are destroyed; conversely, second-strike capability is innately
stabilizing. Second-strike capability in both of a pair of potential
adversaries is the basis of mutual assured destruction: since neither
country can destroy its opponent's entire nuclear arsenal in a single
attack, neither can launch a nuclear offensive against the other
without incurring a probable nuclear retaliation on itself,
and-assuming both sets of leaders act rationally-both sides will be
deterred from initiating a nuclear conflict.

The suspicion of many defense analysts in the early 1980s that the
Soviet Union may have achieved a first strike capability over the
United States was behind the Joint Chiefs of Staff's February 1983
recommendation to President Reagan that his administration give
greater
attention to the development of antimissile technologies. President
Reagan responded by announcing his decision to expand research and
development in a televised speech on March 23, 1983, with the result
that the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization was established a
year later in April 1984.

As a sidenote, in addition to underlying much thinking about nuclear
stability, the concepts of first and second strike were fundamental to
Cold War thinking in the U.S. about how to win a nuclear exchange.
Analysts-such as Henry Kissinger, Herman Kahn, and a number of
strategists associated with the Rand Corporation-identified four
strategies for the use of nuclear weapons. One strategy was to manage
escalation so that the weaker nation (presumptively not the United
States) withdrew before a full nuclear exchange took place. Another
was
to stage a massive first strike that preempted an effective response,
and a third was to launch a surgical first strike that destroyed the
opponent's leadership. A final strategy was to simply achieve a
technological breakthrough making strategic defense possible, such as
missile defense.

Fletcher Report, or Defense Technologies Study: A study of national
missile defense possibilities that was released in final version in
February 1984. President Reagan had already decided to pursue
construction of a strategic missile defense system; the panel writing
the report was tasked with sketching alternative ways forward. The
report outlined two models for a missile defense research program. The
favored program was to consist of five research areas: (1) systems;
(2)
surveillance, acquisition, tracking, and kill assessment; (3) directed
energy weapons; (4) kinetic energy weapons; (5) supporting
technologies
(survivability, lethality, space power, space logistics,
communications, computers, and software. It called fr a funding level
of $1.405 billion in 1984, $2.385 billion in 1985, $3.43 billion in
1986, $4.284 billion in 1987, $4.623 billion in 1988, and $4.766
billion in 1989. An alternative was also delineated, which was
designed
to make the most of a lower funding level. The Reagan administration
selected the preferred, higher-funding level program. The report also
made comments recognizing the commonality between technology involved
in a fully developed strategic missile defense system and more limited
defensive systems. See Government Studies of Anti-Missile Technology.

Fort Greely, Alaska: The Bush Administration has declared it intends
to
deploy a rudimentary national missile defense system at Fort Greely,
Alaska, by as early as 2004. Work which would place the United States
in violation of the ABM Treaty could take place as early as the summer
of 2002. See Fort Greely's web site at www.usarak.army.mil/3posts.

Alistair Sim

"I am the Whistler, and I know many things, for I walk by night. I
know many strange tales, many secrets hidden in the hearts of men and
women who have stepped into the shadows. Yes, I know the nameless
terrors of which they dare not speak."

They seek him here
They seek him there.
Those Frenchies seek him everywhere.
Is he in heaven?
Or is he in hell? That damned elusive Pimpernel!

"How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the
impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?"

The little things are infinitely more important."

"I am an omnivorous reader with a strangely retentive memory for
trifles."