Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) & Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) on Defense Authorization Bill
On June 25th Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin and Ranking Member John McCain held a press conference to talk about the Defense Authorization Bill. While much of the discussion was about military tribunals and defense procurement, there were some comments on missile defense.
Chairman Levin had this to say about missile defense.
“We shifted the emphasis as the Secretary of Defense recommended in a number of different programs including missile defense”
“We accepted the cuts in the Ground Based Missile Defense and the deployed Ground Based Interceptors limiting them to 30 as recommended by the Secretary of Defense”
“We increased a number of missile defense programs as recommended and that included the THAAD Program and the Standard Missile 3 (SM3)”
National missile defense isn’t going to stop China. You can see in Han Kristensen’s breakdown of last month’s Air Force Intelligence Report that China, even though they don’t have multiple warheads on their missiles now, they certainly have plenty of them. Maybe not a lot compared to the United States or Russia, but more than we will have ground based interceptors – by a lot. The threat, as Gen. O’Reilly has stated repeatedly, is Iran, North Korea or some non-state actor or rogue nation.
About China Kristensen writes
The report echoes recent statements from other branches of the U.S. intelligence community that the number of warheads on Chinese ICBM capable of reaching the United States could expand to “well over 100 in the next 15 years.” Unfortunately, “well over 100” can mean anything so it is hard to compare this NASIC’s projection with the CIA projection from 2001 of 75-100 warheads “primarily targeted against the United States” by 2015. That projection only included DF-5A and DF-31A capable of targeting all of the United States, with the high number requiring multiple warheads on DF-5A. But the timeline for the anticipated increase has slipped considerably from 2015 to 2024.
Maybe more interesting was this tidbit:
Curiously, even after two nuclear tests and the intelligence community stating for more than a decade that North Korea has nuclear weapons, the NASIC report does not list any of North Korea’s weapons as “nuclear” or “conventional or nuclear.” That is, I think, interesting.
Marshall Brain, the founder of an MDAA favorite — Howstuffworks.com— reminds us that any type of rocket can be easily converted to a missile.
In mid-June, a Japanese newspaper reported something rather alarming. The North Korean military appeared to be preparing a Taepodong-2 missile for a July 4th firing. And the target appeared to be Hawaii. Since Hawaii is 4,350 miles away from North Korea, it is provocative. The idea that a missile might actually launch, fly over Japan and then land near the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific fleet in Hawaii dredges up many bad memories. It also raises the question how does a ballistic missile like this work?
The first thing to understand is that any rocket is easily converted to a missile it’s just a matter of sticking an explosive in the nose cone. The Redstone rocket that took America’s first astronauts into space in the Mercury program was a re-purposed ballistic missile. Any rocket that can launch a satellite or an astronaut into space can easily turn into a missile with a few modifications. That is why there was a great deal of concern when Iran launched its first satellite in February.
The second thing to understand is the ballistic nomenclature. It is called a ballistic missile because the rocket fires for only a small part of the flight. The goal of the rocket is to get the bomb to a certain altitude with a certain forward speed. The bomb then flies to the target along a ballistic trajectory. The bomb may have a guidance system and some limited ability to steer, but once the rocket engines use up their fuel and fall away, the bomb is a lot like an artillery shell. It coasts to the target.
The Taepodong-2 missile is a large rocket. It is thought to be about 110 feet tall and it has two or three stages. Much of its technology began when North Korea purchased Russian SCUD missiles and took them apart to learn about the engines, guidance systems and fuel systems. Those three parts are the foundation of any rocket. For example, the Mercury Redstone rocket had two large tanks to hold alcohol and liquid oxygen. These tanks make up most of the rocket and hold thousands of pounds of fuel. The rocket weighed about 60,000 pounds at launch. Pumps move the oxygen and fuel to a single rocket engine that could produce about 80,000 pounds of thrust. Small metal vanes in the exhaust stream of the engine, along with small fins, let the guidance system do its job.
At launch, the main thing the guidance system is doing is keeping the rocket from falling over. Once the rocket gains some speed and loses a little weight, the guidance system can start pointing the missile in the direction of the target. In the Taepodong-2 missile, each stage is thought to burn for about 100 seconds. Once the first stage runs out of fuel, explosive bolts fire to release it and the engine in the second stage ignites. Once the second stage burns out, it too falls away and the warhead is in ballistic flight toward the target. The guidance system in a missile like this has traditionally been an inertial guidance system. A computer on the missile takes readings from several gyroscopes and accelerometers. It calculates where it is in space second by second using the acceleration and heading readings that it sees. Modern bombs and missiles can now supplement the inertial system with GPS readings as well.
The obvious question for Americans is defensive: Is there anything we can do to eliminate the threat of a missile like this? The United States has several systems able to knock out missiles in flight, including the Patriot missile system, the AEGIS missile system and THAAD. All of these systems use kinetic energy, meaning that one missile runs into the other and destroys it. There is also a Boeing 747 fitted with a huge laser that could disable the missile. In theory, the United States could also launch a cruise missile or smart bomb and blow the rocket up as it sits on the launch pad. So far the U.S. Military has been disinclined to do that, probably for fear of provoking a bad response from China or the United Nations. Howstuffworks.com
Don’t we already have all the missile defenses we need?
Are we really at risk of missile attack?
What missile defenses do we still need?
Do missile defenses really work?
Isn’t the cost of missile defense prohibitive?
Won’t we starta new arms race by insisting on missile defenses?
Have you ever found yourself asking any of these questions? If so, check out this paper by the Heritage Foundation. It addresses commonly asked questions as well as common misunderstandings about missile defense.
Check out this video that was made by the Missile Defense Agency which details several of our missile defense systems. It’s a great overview of our nations missile defense program and has insightful interviews with the men and women of our military that operate these systems.
Check out this Washington Post Op-Ed from Ambassador Robert Joseph about his take on dealing with North Korea. In his capacity as Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security in the Bush Administration Dr. Joseph worked first hand with countries on the North Korean related issues. This article serves as a great reference for those interested in learning about Kim Jong-Il and North Korean related issues because it gives us a good historical overview and puts recent North Korean events in the context.
The article shows that North Korea continually uses brinksmanship tactics to achieve its political and military goals and the global community has thus far been ineffective in dealing with North Korea. These tactics have resulted in North Korea being seemingly rewarded for its behavior as the international community generally has met its demands. He ends the article with a couple policy prescriptions –not the least of which are exerting pressure on China to take the North Korean threat more seriously and strengthening our partnerships with our Asian allies.
Jeffrey Lewis over at Arms Control Wonk has a nice find about slowing North Korea’s development of an ICBM by preventing access to the parts the country needs. It cites an article in The Bulletin that considers how some North Korean assets are kits they bought, and that they are based on Russian kits for the second stage f the Taepodong. If they can’t get the kits, they could be stuck for a while.
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Posted by missiledefense 
Posted by missiledefense 
Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance