US plans for an international anti-missile system have met scepticism abroad and political opposition at home. But hopes remain for foreign participation
From policy-making to war-gaming to manufacturing, missile defence remains an almost wholly US enterprise. The basic defensive system that comes on line in the USA later this year has almost no meaningful contributions from international industry, much less policy guidance from the "friends and allies" it is advertised to protect some day.
But the US Missile Defence Agency's (MDA) monopoly on the design and content of its burgeoning, yet still unproven, system is not intended to last for ever. By 2007, the MDA will have stationed radars and interceptors outside the USA, started integrating Japan's planned missile defence capability into a global command and control network and, perhaps, have international industry teams competing for work on an alternative interceptor rocket and kill vehicle.
The MDA has aligned its strategy to win foreign political and industrial support, requiring potential overseas contractors to secure their host government's endorsement of the US missile defence strategy as a precondition of entering competitions. In return, the MDA may be forced to design a battle management system that in some cases would include foreign governments in the decision-making process.
The globalisation of a technology still in its infancy even after decades of investment has attracted much scepticism. Underlining this point, international industry's slice of the USA's funding stream for missile defence contracts has shrunk to half of what the MDA had planned even a year ago, yet still faces hostility from a US Congress increasingly unreceptive to international co-operative projects.
At the initial defensive capability (IDC), due to be achieved before 1 January, as many as six Boeing ground-based interceptors (GBIs) may be available to target an attack by one or two intercontinental- or intermediate-range ballistic missiles launched by North Korea. The IDC system also includes three US Navy Aegis-class warships equipped with Raytheon SM-3 missiles and several Lockheed Martin Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) batteries for intermediate- and medium-range missile attacks, respectively. Five GBIs are now installed at Fort Greely, Alaska. The navy's SM-3-equipped cruisers are scheduled to begin patrols this month.
For detecting and tracking missile launches, the system relies on upgraded early warning radars in Shemya, Alaska, and Vandenberg AFB, California; the Aegis system's Raytheon SPY-1 radar; and the Defence Support Program (DSP) satellite system. It is a closed-loop, US-made and -operated system.
European partners
The UK and Danish governments will be active MDA partners by 2006 - the year the US Army plans to activate radar bases at Fylingdales, UK and Thule, Greenland. But this participation is political only.
Japan, meanwhile, is investing in an indigenous missile-defence capability to complement the US system, buying Aegis-class warships able to detect and track launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles, as well as to fire on short- to intermediate-range missiles. Japan is also buying PAC-3 batteries. Israel, meanwhile, has already deployed Israel Aircraft Industries/ Boeing Arrow missile batteries.
Much scepticism remains throughout the world about the purpose and feasibility of the US missile defence strategy, but 12 governments have stepped up to support their national industries' participation.
Ground-based Missile Defense (GMD) system prime contractor Boeing has established missile defence agreements in Australia, Canada, France, Israel, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine and the UK. Australia, for example, has plans to adapt its Jindalee over-the-horizon radar to track ballistic missiles, pending the outcome of a flight-test demonstration in the USA this year.
"You're starting to see more participation in missile defence than you'd seen previously," says Boeing's director of strategic initiatives for missile defence systems, Mitch Kugler. "Now it's a question of whether we can take that next step and get [international] industry involved."
However, more was expected when the Bush administration called, nearly two years ago, for allies and partners to support - and, importantly, invest in - the USA's vision of a global system for defeating attacks with salvos of ballistic missiles.
"The USA will also structure our missile defence programme in a manner that encourages industrial participation by other nations," said President George Bush in a speech in December 2002. Bush then revealed plans to convert an anti-ballistic missile (ABM) testbed into a rudimentary operational capability within two years. That system remains in testing and is believed to be awaiting the results of the next, long-delayed integrated flight test, called IFT-13C, now scheduled for late November or early December.
Treaty dismissal
The timing of Bush's expanded international co-operation strategy for missile defence in late 2002 was significant. A feasible foreign partnership had been impossible under the terms of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which the Bush administration had made irrelevant months earlier. The treaty included provisions barring the transfer of missile defence components or technologies to an ally without a waiver. Japan's decision to buy the Aegis-class ships, for example, would have been unlawful under the treaty.
With that prohibition removed, the US government moved quickly to make such sales of US equipment possible, securing the Japanese deal in December 2003. Later this year, Lockheed Martin intends to make an aggressive international sales push for the Terminal High-Altitude Air Defence (THAAD) system, which, if successful in a two-year testing period starting in early 2005, would be used to intercept both medium-range and intercontinental ballistic missiles in the final, downward phase of their trajectories.
But there was more to the Bush administration's international co-operation strategy than selling US-made missile-defence products to foreign governments. There was also the goal of investing in alternative technologies designed by foreign contractors, and this is now an area of growing concern within the missile defence community.
In particular, the MDA has been slow to define the role of foreign industry in its strategy - a worry for missile defence proponents who see industrial participation as key to securing governmental support.
Boeing has signed agreements with 15 companies, including Alenia Spazio of Italy; BAE Systems and MBDA of the UK; CAE of Canada; CEA of Australia; EADS of France; Havelsan of Turkey; IAI and Tadiran of Israel; PIT of Poland; and RTI of Russia. But for more than a year after Bush's industrial co-operation plans were revealed, there were no contracts on which to bid.
It was not until the Bush administration unveiled the fiscal 2005 budget request last February that any opportunity for foreign contractors became available. The MDA's chosen path is to offer its latest development project - the $22 billion Northrop Grumman-led kinetic energy interceptor (KEI) - as the only major project open to foreign bidders, with $1.1 billion available to be claimed through competition.
But even here, the project must overcome strict US export controls and growing doubts about support for the KEI even among missile defence proponents, and avoid becoming the latest battleground in the raging domestic debate about "buy American" policies.
The KEI is the first component of the missile defence architecture to be designed since the USA pulled out of the ABM Treaty. It is both a mobile land-based and sea-based interceptor capable of flying faster than 5km/s (3.1 miles/s) - nearly twice the speed of the existing Boeing-developed ground-based interceptor. Each of those features would have violated the Cold War-era ABM Treaty.
Boost phase
The MDA intends the KEI to be ready by 2013-15 to intercept ballistic missiles while they are in the boost phase of flight, which is usually defined as roughly the first 3min. This is when the long-range weapon is most vulnerable to the MDA's detection and targeting systems, and it is hardest for adversaries to use effective countermeasures of the kind that continue to confound mid-course interceptors.
The boost phase objective requires the system to be highly mobile, capable of relocating nearer to the source of suspected launch threats. To meet this requirement, Northrop Grumman is developing a launch canister fully common to the land- and sea-based systems.
The interceptor system itself borrows heavily from several existing technologies. The KEI's Raytheon kill vehicle includes the seeker and avionics from the SM-3 missile and a liquid divert and attitude control system from the MDA's existing exoatmospheric kill vehicle.
The KEI's third-stage rocket motor is also borrowed from the SM-3. First- and second-stage rocket motors are based on decade-old technology owned by Alliant Techsystems (ATK).
Northrop Grumman is also responsible for developing a command, control, battle management and communications (C2BMC) system, but here the company is leveraging its role as C2BMC supplier for the Ground-based Mid-course Defence system.
But there may still be room for international participation. Foreign contractors have been asked to propose alternative designs for the Raytheon kill vehicle and components of the Raytheon/ATK booster rocket, with initial delivery promised for 2014. A senior US defence official notes however that, to win, foreign bidders must have the support of their host governments, which have to provide up to half the funds for development and production.
Such criteria set a high bar for foreign contractors to enter the programme. Many governments may be wary of the high cost of supporting a winning proposal, particularly during a time of sparse resources for research and development programmes.
There is also the chance that foreign contractors or their governments could be put off by an unusually low level of enthusiasm for the KEI programme in the US Congress, where most missile-defence projects have enjoyed broad support in recent years. Instead, the KEI's budget has been slashed by about one-third in each of the two years the Bush administration has submitted a funding request for the programme.
One defence observer says: "There has never been a [missile defence] programme Republicans have attacked as vigorously as KEI. Republicans don't think this is a very good idea in general."
Funding attacked
Funding support for the KEI international co-operation effort also has been attacked, with Congress voiding a $25 million line item for that purpose in the FY05 budget. Congress has been particularly wary of programmes that involve foreign industries.
But the issues confronting KEI are just one example of the complexities facing the integration of foreign governments into the US missile defence system. In Japan, for instance, authorities are struggling with the constitutional ramifications of full participation. A constitutional amendment may be needed for the Japan Self-Defence Force to send sensor information from its future Aegis-class ships into the US-controlled battle management system.
Command and control among international partners is another concern for the MDA to sort out. It is known to be looking at sites to install a third interceptor battery outside the USA after 2007, probably in Eastern Europe. Poland, the Czech Republic and Romania are possible candidates.
Later, when foreign armed forces seek to link locally controlled sensors and interceptors into the USA's battle management system, MDA planners must work out what authority the foreign governments will have in launch decisions
STEPHEN TRIMBLE / WASHINGTON DC
Source: Flight International
