[FPSPACE] Two articles on the NMD
dconst+@pyrrhus.cimds.ri.cmu.edu
dconst+@pyrrhus.cimds.ri.cmu.edu
Wed, 9 Aug 2000 15:46:25 EDT
Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2000 23:40:09 PDT
From: C-ap@clari.net (AP / ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer)
Organization: Copyright 2000 by The Associated Press (via ClariNet)
Subject: Delays Plague New Defense Plans
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Pentagon's experimental missile defense,
already beset by high-profile test failures, must now deal with
longer delays from the contractor building new rocket boosters. The
setbacks could jeopardize the missile's readiness by the target
date of 2005.
Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said Tuesday that Defense
Secretary William Cohen is not ready to abandon the 2005 goal, but
he conceded that delays in technical aspects of the project are
growing.
``We have always admitted that this was a high-risk program and
part of being high risk is the deployment date; whether we can meet
the deployment date of 2005,'' Bacon told reporters. ``We will try
our best.''
What has become apparent, one month after a highly publicized
failure to shoot down a mock warhead in space, is that the
Pentagon's lead contractor on national missile defense, Boeing Co.,
is facing even longer delays than previously acknowledged in
building a booster for the new missile interceptor.
The new rocket booster is designed to carry into space, then
release, a self-guiding ``kill vehicle'' that would maneuver in the
path of an incoming warhead and destroy it by force of impact.
The new rocket would replace the old-generation rocket booster
used in an embarrassingly failed anti-missile flight test last
month. A 10-year-old electronic component failed to send a signal
to release the ``kill vehicle'' from atop the rocket, and the
``kill vehicle'' never attempted to intercept its target. The s
considering now.''
It remains possible that even if Cohen were to decide to move
back the 2005 target by a year or two, he could recommend that
Clinton begin the first deployment steps now in order to ease the
overall schedule crunch. The first step would be awarding contracts
for construction of a new X-band radar on a remote island in the
Aleutians off Alaska.
The new rocket had been eight months behind in development, and
Bacon disclosed Tuesday that it is running an additional several
months late. He said department officials are still calculating an
exact timetable. It originally was to make its first solo flight --
without the ``kill vehicle'' aboard -- last April; then it was
delayed until November 2000, and Bacon said a further delay until
spring 2001 was now likely.
The new booster's first flight in conjunction with testing the
overall missile defense system is officially scheduled for sometime
in the first three months of 2001, although it probably will not be
ready for ram. Their report said the Pentagon faced ``stressing
challenges'' to demonstrate in time for a 2005 deployment that the
rocket booster -- technically called a ground-based interceptor --
would perform reliably.
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On the Net: Ballistic Missile Defense Organization:
http://www.acq.osd.mil/bmdo/bmdolink/html/nmd.html
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growing.
Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2000 10:50:10 PDT
From: C-ap@clari.net (AP / ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer)
Organization: Copyright 2000 by The Associated Press (via ClariNet)
Subject: Response To US Missile Defense Eyed
WASHINGTON (AP) -- U.S. intelligence officials have informed
President Clinton that China is likely to accelerate its nuclear
arms buildup if the United States erects a national defense against
long-range missiles, officials said Wednesday.
The prediction, in a classified report known as a National
Intelligence Estimate, is part of a broader assessment of how
foreign countries might respond to a U.S. decision to go ahead with
a national missile defense.
It will be for Clinton to judge whether a faster Chinese nuclear
arms buildup is an acceptable price to pay for a national missile
defense that critics say is unnecessary in the short term and
unworkable.
Clinton has said he would decide soon whether to authorize the
initial steps toward deploying a network of missile interceptors,
missile-tracking radars and battle management computers to defend
all 50 states against a small-scale nuclear attack. China is among
the few nations capable of a nuclear strike on the United States.
In making his decision, Clinton has said he would take into
account four main factors: the urgency of the missile threat
against the United States, the cost of a missile defense, the
feasibility of building a reliable defense and the implications for
U.S. foreign policy, including responses from China and other
nations.
China and Russia are strongly opposed to the U.S. plan, arguing
that it would undercut the deterrent value of their nuclear
arsenals, violate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty logies and might not be
deterred by U.S. nuclear threats.
U.S. officials who are familiar with the classified intelligence
report, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it states that
China plans to increase its nuclear arsenal regardless of U.S.
national missile defense plans. However, it adds that the increase
likely would be sped up if a missile defense were built.
``Would they probably accelerate it? Yes,'' one official said.
The report also affirms an intelligence estimate of September
1999 that the United States most likely will face a missile threat
by 2015 from North Korea, probably from Iran and possibly from
Iraq, the officials said.
The report also predicts that Russia would continue shrinking
its nuclear force, which has been eroded in recent years by a lack
of money to modernize. Russian officials have warned that they
would feel compelled to respond to a U.S. missile defense, possibly
by withdrawing from major arms control agreements.
Additions to China's nucleabe targeted mainly at the United
States.
The CIA also has reported that China is developing a
submarine-launched nuclear missile, the JL-2, which the
intelligence agency said was likely to be tested within the next
decade. It said the JL-2 probably will be able to target the United
States from waters near China.
Anthony Cordesman, a national security expert at the Center for
Strategic and International Studies, said in a report last month on
likely Chinese reactions to U.S. missile defenses that Washington
might be able to negotiate ceilings on China's strategic force in
exchange for clear limits to the U.S. defenses.
Cordesman concluded, however, that China was more likely to
reject such a negotiation and instead would react to U.S.
deployment of missile defenses by ``systematically upgrading its
strategic nuclear forces to ensure that it can saturate and defeat
any national missile defense system the United States deploys.''