Home > Bibliography > View Citation

View Citation


Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis. Independent Working Group on Missile Defense, the Space Relationship, and the Twenty-First Century, 2007 Report. Washington, D.C.: Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, August 28, 2006. [ 13 quotes ]

Evidence Related to this Citation

Space-Based Missile Defense will Dissuade Adversaries from Developing Ballistic Missiles
 
The benefits of space-based defense are manifold. The deployment of a robust global missile defense that includes space-based interdiction capabilities will make more expensive, and therefore less attractive, the foreign development of technologies needed to overcome it, particularly with regard to ballistic missiles. Indeed, the enduring lesson of the ABM Treaty era is that the absence of defenses, rather than their presence, empowers the develop­ment of offensive technologies that can threaten American se­curity and the lives of American citizens. And access to space, as well as space control, is key to future U.S. efforts to provide disincentives to an array of actors seeking such power.
Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis. Independent Working Group on Missile Defense, the Space Relationship, and the Twenty-First Century, 2007 Report. Washington, D.C.: Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, August 28, 2006. [ 13 quotes ] [ page VIII ]
Egypt has a Clandestine Program to Develop Ballistic Missiles and WMD
 
Egypt, which is engaged in a clandestine effort to acquire WMD and ballistic missile technologies. In late 2003 and early 2004, in the wake of Libya’s abrupt reversal of course on WMD, U.S. and British officials discovered signs that Cairo and Tripoli had established a WMD partnership that included the sharing of nuclear and ballistic missile expertise and components, based largely on “strategic weapons” acquired from North Korea. Furthermore, inspections by the IAEA have uncovered plutonium traces at Egyptian nuclear facilities, increasing international concern about clandestine nuclear development efforts on the part of the Mubarak regime. The IAEA has also recently criticized Cairo for failing to declare certain nuclear materials and sites, one of which was a plant used for separating plutonium that could be used in an atomic weapon.
Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis. Independent Working Group on Missile Defense, the Space Relationship, and the Twenty-First Century, 2007 Report. Washington, D.C.: Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, August 28, 2006. [ 13 quotes ] [ page 4 ]
Saudi Arabia Recieved Nuclear Technologies from Pakistan
 
Saudi Arabia, which may be pursuing a nuclear program. Under an agreement signed during the October 2003 visit to Islamabad by Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, Riyadh reportedly gained access to Pakistani nuclear technologies in exchange for stepped-up energy cooperation and improved strategic relations with Pakistan. While Saudi Arabia has denied that it is developing a nuclear weapons capability, it has also recently been granted “small quantities protocol” status from the IAEA, which removes strict oversight of its nuclear reactor and could potentially facilitate the clandestine pursuit of nuclear weapons. It is reported that U.S. officials are investigating potential transactions between the A.Q. Kahn nuclear proliferation network and Saudi Arabia. Riyadh, meanwhile, is also thought to be seeking modern replacements for its aging arsenal of Chinese CSS-2 missiles from the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis. Independent Working Group on Missile Defense, the Space Relationship, and the Twenty-First Century, 2007 Report. Washington, D.C.: Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, August 28, 2006. [ 13 quotes ] [ page 4 ]
A Space-Based Missile Defense System is the Only one Capable of Providing Truly Global Coverage
 
Other things being equal, it is preferable to intercept threatening ballistic missiles as far away from their intended targets as possible and as early in their flight trajectory as possible. Best of all would be to have the capability to destroy an attacking missile shortly after it is launched, while its rockets still burn and any perturbation will lead to its destruction -- with, in many cases, the debris falling back onto the area where the attack was launched in the first place. The capability to interdict a missile and its warheads in any phases of their flight (boost, midcourse, and terminal) requires an ability to detect and intercept the attack within a very few minutes and to track and destroy the attacking missile and its warheads during their longer midcourse traverse through space before they begin to re­enter the atmosphere so that the debris will burn up on reentry. Finally, the last ditch defense would be to destroy the attacking missile as they reenter and pass through the atmosphere in the terminal phase enroute to their target. The best defense capability would be layered so that it could provide o­pportunities for destruction in all three phases of flight. Only space-based defenses inherently have this global capa­bility and permanence. While sea-based defenses can move free­ly through the two-thirds of the earth's surface that are oceans, their capability is limited by geography and by the specific operations of the fleet -- including where the sea-based missile defense happens to be deployed at any given time, and how quick­ly it could be redeployed to meet a crisis situation. Air-based and ground-based defenses, meanwhile, can have global capa­bilities, but frequently take considerable time to deploy when and where needed and are also dependent on the cooperation of U.S. friends and allies in permitting the necessary support­ing activities on their territories. Thus, only a space-based missile defense will possess both constancy and global availability, irrespective of allied support and agreement. As such, space-based missile defense constitutes the only truly global system, with all the rest being either "regional" or "local."
Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis. Independent Working Group on Missile Defense, the Space Relationship, and the Twenty-First Century, 2007 Report. Washington, D.C.: Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, August 28, 2006. [ 13 quotes ] [ page 10-11 ]
Capabilities and Motivations to Develop Space Weapons now Widespread
 
For many nations, the opportunity to acquire space weapons is growing as technologies become available on a global basis. Several countries already have ongoing space programs designed to provide a high-leverage response to U.S. military power. Their incentives to deploy space weapons are extensive; such capabilities could threaten present and future U.S. dominance, both in space and in the terrestrial arena. Space-based weapons in the hands of hostile states constitute an asymmetric capability designed to undermine U.S. strengths, including not only American maritime power projection assets, but also vital space-based sensors and communications satellites. Unless the United States chooses to abandon its superpower status, continued access to space as well as a growing U.S. presence in space, based on advancing technologies, will remain indispensable to national security.
Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis. Independent Working Group on Missile Defense, the Space Relationship, and the Twenty-First Century, 2007 Report. Washington, D.C.: Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, August 28, 2006. [ 13 quotes ] [ page 34 ]
History Demonstrates that Deployment of Space Weapons or Space-Based Missile Defense Unlikely to Start Arms Race
 
Indeed, far from producing a costly and deadly arms race, the deployment of a robust, global, space-based missile defense is likely to make it more expensive, and therefore less attractive, for other states to build missiles or to engage in regional arms races based on the deployment of missiles. There is no empirical or historical basis for the contention that such an effort will lead other states to step up their missile-related programs, leading to an escalating race to deploy missiles designed to overcome whatever missile defense is deployed by the United States. In fact, following the ABM Treaty in the 1970s, the Soviet Union nevertheless deployed large numbers of advanced missile systems, negating the logic that the ABM Treaty reduced the incentive or need to deploy new generations of missiles designed to defeat deployed missile defenses. The ABM Treaty codified a strategic relationship of mutual vulnerability in which the Soviet Union nevertheless built large numbers of additional intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads whose purpose was to increase U.S., not mutual, vulnerability – and to assure that, in the event of nuclear war, the Soviet Union would have had strategic superiority.
Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis. Independent Working Group on Missile Defense, the Space Relationship, and the Twenty-First Century, 2007 Report. Washington, D.C.: Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, August 28, 2006. [ 13 quotes ] [ page 36 ]
International Space Law cannot come up with an Adequate Definition for Space Weapons
 
So, the problem of identifying space weaponization in terms of just exactly where and under what conditions it exists is highly complex, particularly as to how space weaponization can be defined in terms of international/space law. In this re­gard, Robert A. Ramey, who has been chief of space and inter­national law at the U.S. Air Force Space Command, writes: (The) basic term space weapon lacks definition in in­ternational law. As a result, the concept it represents, which broadly speaking includes any implements of warfare in space, is difficult to isolate. Without this foundational definition, one cannot define phrases on which it might rely. The difficulty comes into particular focus by observing that any comprehensive definition of space weapons will include space systems equally used for nonmilitary, nondestructive, and nonaggressive purposes. Though space weapons may seem to include only a discrete class of armaments with easily definable characteristics, a closer examination "reveals a less obvious and more inclusive set of systems."
Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis. Independent Working Group on Missile Defense, the Space Relationship, and the Twenty-First Century, 2007 Report. Washington, D.C.: Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, August 28, 2006. [ 13 quotes ] [ page 73 ]
Verification and Enforcement of Space Arms Control Highly Problematic
 
The medium of space is infinite in which is housed everything known so far to man. Within it reigns the cosmos (or under the quantum theory, chaos), generally speaking an unfriendly place for unprotected living creatures.It is, thus, extremely difficult to seek ways to control weaponization through regimes, agreements and treaties. In space everything moves, so that there are no fixed boundaries, save what could be staked out on celestial bodies, like the moon which also moves. Thus, verification and enforcement of treaty conditions is highly complex at best. This reality dictates the imperative that the United States must exercise the greatest care in any discussions or actions relative to another space treaty, for the question arises: Who will control whom and what and how?
Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis. Independent Working Group on Missile Defense, the Space Relationship, and the Twenty-First Century, 2007 Report. Washington, D.C.: Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, August 28, 2006. [ 13 quotes ] [ page 72 ]
U.S. Restraint in Space Weapons Development would Encourage other Nations to Fill Vacuum
 
However, whether directed energy weapons are offensive or defensive, like surface ships and submarines, depends on how they are used. Space-based directed energy missile defense systems, deployed to destroy ballistic missiles launched against the United States, cannot be deemed offensive systems. To argue otherwise is to equate those who would launch such an attack using missiles armed with WMD warheads with those who seek to defend themselves from such an attack. Equally absurd is the notion that the United States can, and should, take the lead in banning space-based systems and thus provide an example to the international community. Here the assumption is that the United States can establish global regimes that will strengthen or create international norms against the weaponization of space. The burden of proof that such an American approach would achieve its objectives is not supported by the history of conflict. The ability of states and other actors to utilize new geographical arenas, whether at sea, on land, or in the air, has led to conflict and competi­tion based on available technologies in these diverse settings. At the same time, it is suggested that a decision by the United States to forego the deployment of space-based assets will lead to comparable restraint on the part of others. It may be equally plausible to suggest that such self abnegation by the United States will only encourage others to fill the resulting political vacuum.
Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis. Independent Working Group on Missile Defense, the Space Relationship, and the Twenty-First Century, 2007 Report. Washington, D.C.: Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, August 28, 2006. [ 13 quotes ] [ page 31 ]
Credible Missile Defense more likely to help Slow Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons
 
To begin with, arms races stem from competition for offensive weapons and while it is true that some of these are designed in part to overcome someone's defenses, the converse that no defenses breed no offensive weapons is without historical basis. Indeed, this proposition is supported by irrefutable evidence that the United States never has had missile defenses for its population, much less its military installations (save for selective use of limited "point" defense, such as the Patriot). But that reality has not prevented either nuclear proliferation or nuclear arms buildups; it has in all probability been the reverse.The evidence also is clear that the past forty years, most especially the last decade, have seen relentless buildups and bold moves to spread the use of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, as witness evolving events in Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran (discussed elsewhere in this report). One of the few times there has been a significant slowing of momentum was in the brief period 1985-1993, which was the height of missile defense development in the United States.In other words, if anything, a credible missile defense – even in development stage – is much more likely to help slow an arms race and discourage proliferation, because it raises the costs and lowers the chances of success for aggressor nations or terrorist groups to try to find ways to overwhelm an effective missile defense system with their offensive weapons. In this sense, it can become a deterrent and thus contribute to stability. Arguably, there is some evidence of this likelihood, in that at least some of the reasons for the Soviet Union collapse was due to an inability to keep up with U.S. technological developments in this field, and even as the USSR was scaling itself down, it was engaging in ways to share missile defense technology and use – an effort that was discontinued by the U.S. government after 1993.
Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis. Independent Working Group on Missile Defense, the Space Relationship, and the Twenty-First Century, 2007 Report. Washington, D.C.: Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, August 28, 2006. [ 13 quotes ] [ page 68 ]
U.S. has no Strategic Interests in Unilaterally Disarming its Space Weapon Efforts
 
In other words, with a new space treaty the United States would be practicing an advanced version of "unilateral disarmament" that was used as the centerpiece for the nuclear disarmament arguments of the 1950s-1960s, i.e., if the United States disarms itself, the Soviet Union will surely follow – the argument that led ultimately to the MAD doctrine of hostage holding and the subsequent ABM Treaty, which, of course, did not prevent a huge nuclear arms race. A new space treaty would become an advanced version in that it would be unilateral disarmament before the fact, not even progressing to a point where there would be something to disarm.The ramifications of this new application of unilateralism are staggering, for they would preclude the United States from making full use of its science and technology to stay on the cutting edge of space development of both offensive and defensive means to protect current and future space assets, as well as the American people. It would leave the way open to be perpetually vulnerable to the weapons that other nations might develop in the absence of any conceivable viable means of treaty enforcement that would serve U.S. vital interests (discussed elsewhere in this report). As Portugal and later Spain both lost dominance of the seas during the middle of the last millennium, so would the United States be edged out of any leadership role in space development.
Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis. Independent Working Group on Missile Defense, the Space Relationship, and the Twenty-First Century, 2007 Report. Washington, D.C.: Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, August 28, 2006. [ 13 quotes ] [ page 75 ]
China is Modernizing its Ballistic Missile Arsenal
 
As part of this effort, China is upgrading its existing ballistic missile arsenal. This includes the deployment on its Dong-feng 31 ICBMs of multiple independently-targetable re-entry vehicle (MIRV) warhead technology designed to defeat primitive anti-missile systems, priority solid fuel propellant research intended to provide Beijing with immediate "launch on command" capabilities, and the transformation of its strategic offensive forces from large, stationary missiles to more versatile road- and rail-mobile variants. Notably, a successful flight-test of China's new submarine-launched version of the Dong-feng 31, the Julang 2, was conducted in June 2005. The Julang 2 has a range of up to 9,600 kilometers and, according to the U.S. Air Force's National Air Intelligence Center, "will, for the first time, allow Chinese [missile submarines] to target portions of the United States from operating areas located near the Chinese coast." These capabilities are even more troubling in light of remarks made by Chinese Major General Zhu Chenghu, who declared that nuclear weapons would have to be used if the United States intervened militarily in a conflict over Taiwan.
Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis. Independent Working Group on Missile Defense, the Space Relationship, and the Twenty-First Century, 2007 Report. Washington, D.C.: Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, August 28, 2006. [ 13 quotes ] [ page 5 ]
Syria has Ballistic Missile Capability
 
Syria, which maintains biological and chemical weapons capabilities and possesses a large collection of surface- to-surface ballistic missile systems, could deliver conventional and unconventional warheads to neighboring countries in the Middle East. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has estimated that Damascus possesses hundreds of Free-Rocket-Over-Ground (FROG) missiles, Scud missiles, and SS-21 short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs). Syria also possesses the indigenous capability to manufacture liquid-fuel Scuds. In September 2003 testimony before the House of Representatives Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, Under Secretary of State John Bolton outlined that Syria "is fully committed to expanding and improving its CW [chemical weapons] program" and "is continuing to develop an offensive biological weapons capability." Syria's mobile missile force is capable of targeting much of Israel, as well as parts of Iraq, Jordan and Turkey, and has "developed a longer-range missile – the Scud-D – with assistance from North Korea" while simultaneously pursuing "both solid- and liquid-propellant missile programs."
Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis. Independent Working Group on Missile Defense, the Space Relationship, and the Twenty-First Century, 2007 Report. Washington, D.C.: Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, August 28, 2006. [ 13 quotes ] [ page 4 ]