[FPSPACE] FPSpacer in the news re missile defense in Europe

[E.P. Grondine]

Hi  - 

You're reference frame for analysis is wrong.

Israel is continuing to steal Palestinian land. 

Syria, Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia all  have IRBMs.

Analysis of US policy has to be undertaken with in view of those facts.

E.P. Grondine
Man and Impact in the Americas


> From: robot at esper.com
> To: fpspace at friends-partners.org
> Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2007 10:09:17 -0400
> Subject: [FPSPACE] FPSpacer in the news re missile defense in Europe
> 
> Congratulations to our own Pavel Podvig, who is quoted in this
> morning's issue of USA Today regarding the proposed ballistic missile
> interceptors in Eastern Europe. See article below.
> 
> Before skipping down, I have to weigh in here.
> 
> For one thing, folks like Ted Postel and Dick Garwin are perennial
> missile defense opponents, so it's no surprise their analysis of this
> system differs from the Establishment's. For another, MIT has long
> hosted a number of anti-nuclear and anti-BMD scholars, and the MIT
> Press is the publisher which printed Dr. Podvig's (excellent) book.
> This is not an /ad hominem/ attack, I'm just reminding readers of
> some relationships. I further remind you all that Garwin is the one
> who criticized nuclear-tipped BMD back in April 2002 by
> disingenuously suggesting that the warhead would be the ridiculously
> oversized 5-Mt job in the Spartan system. That was a total strawman,
> and a red herring.
> 
> Of the guys who are cited here, the one whose scholarship I respect
> the most is our own Dr. Podvig, and if he weren't mentioned, the
> article would carry a lot less weight with me.
> 
> I have stated before that I think the Russian government's argument
> in this matter is hooey (works in English and Russian).
> 
> It is difficult to criticize the article as is, because there aren't
> enough numbers (like GLOW, warhead mass, mass ratio, Isp, etc.) and
> the editors of USA Today chose not to provide a URL to the original
> work. That's really annoying.
> 
> The one number that is cited -- Postel's claim that the burnout
> velocity could top 5.6 mi/sec (9 km/sec converted to SI units) -- I
> do not find credible at all. May I remind you all that the "first
> space velocity" is 7.9 km/sec? That the velocity which makes an
> object an ICBM and not a satellite is typically 5 km/sec? That
> factoring is a loss budget of 2-3 km/sec, say, would give the
> interceptor-booster an impressive space capability (remember Earth
> escape is 11.2 km/sec)? I've done a few back o' the envelope
> calculations on this subject myself, as you all know. 
> 
> I also dispute the claim that there are better locations for the
> antimissile base(s). Grab a cheap globe from walmart for 10 bucks and
> see for yourself. Trace the great circle route from the eastern
> seaboard of the USA to say, Iran. It goes over Central Europe. If the
> base is not sited in Poland or the Czech Republic, the only
> candidates on land are in the Balkans (all of which have political
> reliability concerns except maybe Slovenia) and Turkey (they didn't
> cooperate with the US in the Iraq invasion, and overtly religious
> parties have won power). The Russian offer to site the base on the
> Caspian littoral is interesting, and the US should build extra
> interceptors and take them up on that. But we should also change the
> definite article to an indefinite one - that is, the Caspian base
> should be *a* base (one of several), not just *the* base.
> 
> Note also that the criticism below does not dispute another important
> argument in support of the bases -- that a small system of 10s of
> interceptors cannot possibly threaten a retaliatory capability as
> huge as Russia's (1000s of launchers). Either argument is sufficient
> by itself, so even if one of them is wrong, the Establishment's
> overall argument that BMD in Europe cannot threaten Russia is still
> true. (I ought to make one assumption of mine explicit - that the
> only legitimate purpose of strategic nuclear weapons is deterrence
> against same, not warfighting. If Russian follows that doctrine also,
> then the BMD bases pose no significant threat to them. However, if
> Russia thinks these things should be used for warfighting and threats
> against Europe, as Putin's recent announcements suggest, then BMD
> bases in Central Europe would tend to blunt that tactical threat to
> some degree. But tactical isn't legitimate.)
> 
> Robert
> 
> Robert G Kennedy III, PE
> www.ultimax.com
> 
> ***fwd news***
> 
> Physicists challenge U.S. missile claims
> Posted 3h 24m ago []
> 
> WASHINGTON (AP) — A number of top U.S-based physicists have concluded
> that the Bush administration used inaccurate claims to reassure NATO
> allies about U.S. missile defense plans in Eastern Europe.
> 
> They say the planned Polish-based interceptors and a radar system in
> the Czech Republic could target and catch Russian missiles, thus
> threatening Russia's nuclear deterrent.
> 
> That view supports Russia's criticism of the system. Russia adamantly
> opposes the plan, and the dispute has helped escalate U.S.-Russian
> tensions to the highest point since the Cold War.
> 
> The Pentagon agency overseeing the missile program, the Missile
> Defense Agency, rejects the scientists' claims, saying their analyses
> are flawed. The United States says the missile system is intended to
> counter a threat from Iran and could not take out Russian missiles.
> Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has dismissed Russia's concerns
> as "ludicrous."
> 
> But the six scientists, whose backgrounds include elite American
> universities, research labs and high levels of government, said in
> interviews that Russia's concerns were justified.
> 
> "The claim by the Missile Defense Agency is not correct," said
> Theodore Postol, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of
> Technology and a longtime missile defense critic. "And it is hard to
> understand how they could get something so basic wrong."
> 
> The scientists have not disputed another argument used by U.S.
> officials that the 10 interceptors planned for Poland would be easily
> overwhelmed by Russia's vast missile arsenal, leading one supporter
> of missile defense to conclude that even if the scientists are
> correct, the U.S. argument holds up.
> 
> "I don't think it changes the basic assertion of the administration
> that this does not pose a threat to Russia," said Baker Spring, a
> national security analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative
> think tank.
> 
> The Missile Defense Agency's claims were made as part of an intensive
> U.S. diplomatic push early this year. President Bush and senior U.S.
> officials traveled to Europe to persuade allies that Russian worries
> about U.S. missile capabilities were unfounded.
> 
> The trips followed threats by Russia to retarget its missiles on
> Europe. Some European officials had expressed skepticism about the
> plans and recommended further consultations with Russia. Public
> opinion in some countries, including Poland and the Czech Republic,
> ran against the U.S. plans.
> 
> To reassure the foreign governments and the public, Lt. Gen. Henry
> "Trey" Obering III, director of the Missile Defense Agency, presented
> slideshows intended to demonstrate that the Europe-based system was
> designed only to counteract missiles from Iran. The allies have not
> challenged the agency's claims.
> 
> The physicists told The Associated Press that Obering's presentations
> were misleading and inconsistent on key points. Postol, a former
> scientific adviser to the chief of naval operations, and George
> Lewis, associate director of the Peace Studies Program at Cornell
> University, have written a study of the MDA claims.
> 
> Congressional testimony by Postol in 1992 helped counter U.S.
> government claims that Patriot missiles were highly successful in
> shooting down Iraqi scud missiles during the Gulf War.
> 
> Pavel Podvig, a researcher at Stanford University's Center for
> International Security and Cooperation, made his own estimates and
> confirmed Postol and Lewis' findings. Podvig, a Russian physicist,
> has been critical of both U.S. and Russian missile defense claims.
> 
> Three other physicists also reviewed Postol's findings and said they
> found them accurate:
> 
> •Richard Garwin, a National Science Award winner who is credited with
> the design of the first hydrogen bomb. Garwin served on the Rumsfeld
> Commission, an independent panel appointed by Congress in the 1990s
> to assess the threat to the United States from ballistic missiles.
> 
> •Philip Coyle, a former associate director of the National Nuclear
> Security Administration's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
> Coyle was assistant secretary of defense in the Clinton
> administration in charge of testing weapons systems.
> 
> •David Wright, a physicist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a
> nuclear non-proliferation and environmental advocacy group.
> 
> The Missile Defense Agency has stood by its claims that the
> interceptors could not catch Russian intercontinental ballistic
> missiles.
> 
> "The basic fact of the matter is that we would never make a statement
> like that unless we knew it was true," MDA spokesman Rick Lehner said.
> 
> In one of Obering's slide presentations, labeled "Missile Defense for
> U.S. allies and Friends," an image illustrates the trajectory of a
> Russian ICBM from a point east of Moscow toward Washington. The
> slide, which also illustrates the Polish interceptors, says in bold
> script "Interceptors Cannot Catch Russian Missiles."
> 
> "The reason we selected Poland and the Czech Republic for the
> potential positions of these assets is because it was optimum for the
> Iranian threat," Obering said after a meeting with German officials
> in Berlin on March 15. "They are not positioned to where we can even
> catch the Russian missiles with these interceptors."
> 
> The dissenting scientists say that both those claims were incorrect.
> The interceptors could catch Russian ICBMs, they said, and the
> interceptors and the radar would be better positioned closer to Iran
> to counter a threat from its missiles.
> 
> Postol concluded that the Pentagon significantly understated the
> speed that U.S. interceptors could reach when their boosters burned
> out and overstated how long it would need to track a missile by
> launching the interceptors.
> 
> While all six scientists are skeptical that the U.S. missile defense
> system can work, they believe that in terms of raw speed, U.S.
> interceptors in Poland could catch a Russian ICBM launched from
> western Russia at any part of the continental United States. In
> Postol's model, the intercept would occur at a point over the North
> Pole.
> 
> The Missile Defense Agency says the Polish-based rockets would reach
> a burnout speed of 3.9 miles per second, roughly the speed of the
> Russian missiles depicted in Obering's slides. At that speed, the
> interceptors could not catch the Russian missiles.
> 
> But Postol says the interceptors could top 5.6 miles per second.
> 
> Responding to Postol's criticism, the MDA said Postol made
> assumptions about the interceptors that are based on theory, but in
> the real world they do not work as well. Not only are the
> interceptors one-third slower, their rocket motors' thrust is not as
> efficient when tested, and to get to Russian missiles they would be
> going through various stresses that exceed what would be considered
> normal design.
> 
> The MDA presented a chart of rocket motor efficiency from tests and
> noted that Postol's estimates did not reflect what happens in the
> real world.
> 
> But Garwin countered that at least one rocket motor was more
> efficient than a Postol estimate.
> 
> Obering claimed in slides that the European system would expand
> protection from a U.S.-based system to parts of East Asia. Postol
> said that could not be true if the European interceptors were moving
> as slowly as the MDA is claiming.
> 
> The scientists have not disputed another argument used by U.S.
> officials that the 10 interceptors planned for Poland would be easily
> overwhelmed by Russia's vast missile arsenal, leading one supporter
> of missile defense to conclude that even if the scientists are
> correct, the U.S. argument holds up.
> 
> "I don't think it changes the basic assertion of the administration
> that this does not pose a threat to Russia," said Baker Spring, a
> national security analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative
> think tank.
> 
> ***end***
> 
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