International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation

The U.S. "3+3" NMD Program and the ABM Treaty

George Lewis

Under the Clinton Administration's 3+3 program the United States is in the process of developing (a process initially anticipated to take three years) a national missile defense (NMD) system that could be deployed within three years of making a decision to deploy. Development of this system is scheduled to be completed by the year 2000, and a Deployment Readiness Review will be held that year to decide whether or not to begin immediate deployment of the system. According to the Clinton Administration, the decision on deployment will depend on whether or not the anticipated missile threat justifies deployment.

The Clinton Administration's position has been that there is no threat that currently justifies deploying a NMD system. However, the Administration has been under considerable pressure from Congressional Republicans seeking to require the deployment of a nationwide defense by the year 2003. To counter this pressure, the Administration developed its 3+3 program. This program aimed at producing a deployable system by the same year - 2003 - that the congressional Republicans were seeking a deployment by. Thus, the 3+3 program allowed the Clinton Administration to deflect much of the Congressional pressure to deploy, and indeed has so far succeeded in preventing Congress from mandating such a deployment. Most recently, Senate Republicans have twice failed (by one vote) to bring to a vote legislation that would have required the deployment of a national missile defense as soon as it was technologically feasible.¹

However, this Administration "success" comes at a price. By taking this approach, the Clinton Administration has in effect agreed that a NMD system is needed, and that it is only a question of when it should be deployed. This situation is reflected in statements such as the one made in Congressional testimony in early 1998 by Jacques Gansler, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology, that it is only question of when, and not if, the United States will deploy a NMD system.²

And this time may not be far off. Unlike the "Star Wars" program, which focused on exotic technologies that would take many years to develop, if they could ever be made to work, the 3+3 program is focused on taking existing technology and bringing it to deployment. As discussed below, the 3+3 program is rapidly evolving towards a deployable system. The first integrated system test of the system is now less than a year away, and the development of the system is scheduled to be completed in less than two years. Once development of the system has been completed, the pressure to deploy will become much greater, and it will be much more difficult for any administration to resist the pressure for immediate deployment.

NMD system development moving closer to completion

During the last year, the United States has made significant progress towards completing the development of a deployable NMD system, in particular in developing the individual elements that would comprise the 3+3 NMD system.

On April 30, 1998, the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO) announced that Boeing had been selected as the lead system integrator (LSI) for the NMD program.³ Boeing will thus in effect serve as the prime contractor for the overall NMD system. It will be responsible for overseeing the development of the various components (such as radars and interceptors) of the NMD system and for assuring that these components can work together to form an integrated system. Boeing will also be responsible for testing to demonstrate the capability of the system and for preparing plans that would allow the system to be rapidly deployed once a deployment decision is made.

In July 1998, the booster to be used for the NMD interceptor missile, known as the Ground-Based Interceptor, was selected.⁴ This booster must be capable of accelerating the Exo-atmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV), the NMD kill vehicle which will actually intercept the targets, to speeds of roughly 7 to 8 km/second in order to be able to provide coverage of the entire United States from a single interceptor basing site. The booster will consist of three commercially-available solid-fuel rocket motors stacked to form a three-stage booster, which is referred to as the commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) booster. The selection of the COTS booster represented a defeat for Air Force, which had been pushing to have modified Minuteman III missiles used as the NMD booster.

The first stage motor of the COTS GBI booster will be a slightly modified version of the Graphite Epoxy Nozzle-40 (GEM-40) motor that is currently used in strap-on rockets for Delta II space launchers. The second and third stages will both be powered by Orbus 1 boosters that are currently used in boosters for ballistic missile defense targets. The use of identical second and third stage motors in the COTS design provides a less than fully optimal design - normally each successive stage of a booster uses a smaller motor - but was chosen to hold down costs. The initial contract calls for the purchase of enough motors for five test flights.

Current plans call for the first flight of the COTS booster in fiscal year 2000, with the first test flight of an integrated GBI interceptor - the COTS booster plus the EKV - in fiscal year 2001.

Two flight tests designed to test the sensor capabilities of the two competing Exo-atmospheric Kill Vehicles have also recently been conducted.⁵ The first test, in June 1997, involved Boeing's sensor package for its EKV design. The sensors, launched from Kwajalein test range in the Pacific were used to observe a simulated warhead accompanied by eight "decoys," launched from Vandenberg Air Force base in California. In January 1998, the Raytheon EKV sensor was similarly tested against an identical set of targets. Both of these tests were described by officials as being successful.

The next stage of the competition for the EKV contract is to be a fly-off involving one attempted intercept by each EKV prototype against a simulated ICBM target. Following these intercept tests, scheduled for late 1998, the winning design would be chosen in mid-1999 to become the NMD system's EKV kill vehicle. However, in order to speed up the development process, the BMDO is considering Boeing's request to cancel the fly-off and make a decision on the winning EKV in early 1999 based on the information already in hand.⁶

The primary radar for the 3+3 system will be the NMD Ground-Based Radar (GBR), which will be located at the same site as the NMD GBI interceptors, most likely either at Grand Forks, North Dakota or in northern Alaska. This radar will be a phased-array, X-band radar and will use the same technology as is used in the THAAD theater missile defense radar. A prototype NMD GBR has recently been completed at the U.S. missile test range at the Kwajalein Atoll.⁷ This prototype has an aperture of 123 m² with 16,896 transmit/receive modules, and is said to have a detection range of 2,000-4,000 km.⁸ This prototype GBR can be upgraded to give it the same level of performance as the NMD GBR that will be deployed as part of the national missile defense system.

A centrally-based radar cannot see all missile trajectories that might threaten the United States, and thus additional sensors are needed to provide tracking data to interceptors. Under the 3+3 program, current U.S. early warning radars would be upgraded to give them the ability to track missile warheads with sufficient accuracy to guide interceptors. Demonstrations showing how these radars' detection range, sensitivity, and accuracy can be increased have been carried out over the last several years.⁹ In addition, the deployed 3+3 system may also use a number of forward-deployed X-band phased array radars. These Forward-Based Radars (FBRs) could be deployed in Alaska, and/or on the east and west U.S. coasts. The FBRs would be similar to the main NMD GBR radar, except for the removal of any fire control capabilities.¹⁰ Subsequently, the task of tracking over-the horizon targets will be assumed by the low-earth-orbit component of the Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS-Low). SBIRS-Low satellites, currently schedule to begin deployment in 2004, are designed to track missile targets over their entire trajectory and to do so with sufficient accuracy to guide interceptors even if the target cannot be seen by the defense's radar. SBIRS-Low will provide world-wide coverage and is intended to work both with the NMD system as well as with high-altitude theater missile defense (TMD) systems such as the U.S. Army's THAAD system and the U.S. Navy's Theater-Wide System.

In Fiscal Year 1999, following two test flights intended to demonstrate a capability to intercept targets, an integrated system test will be conducted in order to evaluate the performance of the NMD system.¹¹ Since the first test flights of the GBI booster will not be held until the year 2000, a Lockheed-Martin Payload Launch Vehicle (PLV) will be used as the booster for the EKV during this test (and during the earlier intercept tests).

Implications of the U.S. NMD program for the ABM Treaty

Although the Clinton Administration continues to claim that the preservation of the ABM Treaty is central to U.S. security policy, the deployment of the 3+3 NMD system that it is now developing will almost certainly doom the Treaty. Any U.S. NMD system will certainly be required to cover all fifty states: deployment of a centrally-located defense that does not cover the whole country is politically implausible.¹²

Although many NMD supporters claim that a nationwide NMD system could be legally deployed as long as it involves at most 100 interceptors based at a single site, this argument is simply incorrect. Article 1.2 of the Treaty states: "Each Party undertakes not to deploy ABM systems for a defense of the territory of its country and not to provide a base for such a defense,…" Thus the Treaty flatly prohibits a defense of the entire country. Missile defense proponents claiming that a single-site NMD system can be legally deployed have either simply ignored this prohibition or have claimed that this is not a substantive article but simply a summation of the other prohibitions contained in the Treaty. They then point to article 3 of the Treaty, which allows the deployment of an single-site NMD system with up to 100 interceptors at either the national capital or an ICBM silo field and argue that this article permits the deployment of a single-site nationwide NMD system. However, this argument simply ignores the fact the Treaty explicitly states that the single-site system permitted under article 3 is for the defense of only "an individual region." There are simply no exceptions to the Treaty's prohibition on providing a defense of the entire territory of either country.

Moreover, it is physically impossible to provide coverage of the entire U.S. from a single ground-based site. The permitted ABM system under the current Treaty must have all components (then defined as interceptors, launchers and radars) — not just interceptors — at a single location. But a true single-site system cannot provide nationwide coverage.

For a country as large as the United States or Russia, the curvature of the earth prevents a single radar from providing coverage of the entire country. A missile defense radar located at Grand Forks — the current permitted U.S. ABM site —will be unable to see possible intercontinental missiles attacking large portions of the east and west coasts, and Hawaii would have no coverage at all. Thus a nationwide defense requires sensors at multiple sites to provide tracking information for guiding interceptors to their targets. These additional sensors are essential to the operation such a defense — the defense cannot cover an entire country without them. The notional U.S. National Missile Defense system now under development would address this curvature of the Earth problem by first upgrading existing early warning radars to give them the ability to track warheads accurately enough to guide interceptors (or by deploying new Forward-Based Radars) and by subsequently deploying the SBIRS-Low space-based tracking system.

All of the so-called "single-site" NMD systems under consideration are in fact multiple site systems. While most of these systems have all their interceptors at a single site, the Treaty says all the defense components, not just interceptors, must be at a single site. Thus while many NMD supporters attempt to preserve a fiction of Treaty compliance by claiming that the deployed NMD system will be a legal single-site system, in fact it will be a Treaty-violating multiple-site system.

Moreover, statements from the designers of the U.S. NMD system seem to indicate that even the pretense that the NMD system will be a legal single-site system at the United States' permitted site at Grand Forks, North Dakota will soon be abandoned. Even prior to winning the Lead System Integrator award, a Boeing official stated that the entire United States could not be defended with interceptors based at Grand Forks.¹³ After Boeing became the LSI, Boeing officials reiterated this statement and indicated that their preferred location for the interceptor basing site is in northern Alaska.¹⁴

In fact, as part of the competition for the NMD LSI award, each competitor was required to submit a family of proposed architecture, only one of which was required to be a "Treaty compliant" system with interceptors based at Grand Forks.¹⁵ Each contractor was required to present architectures for three increasing levels of defense capabilities. The first level was a limited defense intended to counter only a few missiles launched by a third world nation. The second level was a higher capability system that might use about 100 interceptors against a larger or more advanced threat. These two levels span the range of what are generally thought of as a "limited" or "thin" NMD systems. However, the contractors were also required to submit plans for a third level NMD system that would have much greater capabilities, and which would almost certainly involve the deployment of interceptors at multiple locations.

Can the ABM Treaty survive?

Legally deploying a nationwide NMD system would require very significant modifications to the ABM Treaty (or withdrawing from it). At a minimum, the Treaty's prohibition on nationwide defenses would have to be eliminated. The Treaty's ban on establishing a base for a national defense would also almost certainly have to be eliminated, since it will be difficult or impossible to put into place a "thin" nationwide defense without putting into place the infrastructure for a much thicker defense. Finally, the Treaty's requirement that all components be located at a single site would have to be eliminated.

However, such changes would leave little in the way of an effective, meaningful Treaty. This is particularly true in combination with the 1997 TMD Demarcation Agreements, which severely weakened the Treaty's prohibition on giving TMD systems capabilities to intercept strategic missiles.

At present, it is extremely unlikely that Russia would agree to such changes to the Treaty. Thus in order to deploy its NMD system, the United States will have to withdraw from the Treaty or commit serious violations of it. Thus deployment of the U.S. NMD system will almost certainly mark the end of the Treaty.

The ABM Treaty has been central to U.S. security policy for over 25 years. The limits it imposes on strategic defenses are almost certainly necessary if deep reductions in nuclear forces are to be acheived. The elimination of the Treaty and the deployment of national missile defenses will likely bring responses from Russia and China that will decrease rather than increase U.S. security. The destruction of the Treaty is a very high price to pay for the deployment of defenses that are unlikely to provide a high degree of effectiveness. Given this situation, the Treaty should not be eliminated and national defenses deployed without a serious national debate over the relative merits of deploying national defenses versus preserving the Treaty. However, given current trends, it now appears likely that the Treaty will be eliminated without such a debate ever taking place.

In adopting its 3+3 program, the Clinton Administration has foregone its opportunity to present the strong case for preserving the ABM Treaty and against deploying national missile defenses. The Administration could have argued that a NMD system was not needed and would be ineffective, and that a NMD deployment could prevent deep nuclear reductions as well as lead to actions by Russia and China that would decrease U.S. security, and thus that the U.S. should continue to perform basic research on defenses, but not now move towards deployment of a national missile defense. Instead, while continuing to proclaim the importance of preserving the Treaty, the Administration has essentially agreed that national defenses are needed and will be deployed once a threat appears, while at the same time developing the capability to deploy a NMD system on a short time scale. Perhaps even more importantly, debate over the relative merits of preserving the Treaty versus deploying a NMD system has been forestalled by those giving the false impression that we can do both. This group includes both many NMD supporters who portray the proposed defenses as Treaty compliant and the Clinton Administration, which refuses to discuss whether or not the deployed NMD system will be Treaty compliant.

Thus we appear to be headed towards a situation similar to that that occurred with theater missile defense in the early 1990s. Following the end of the Cold War and the Iraqi missile attacks in the 1991 Gulf War, the U.S. missile defense program was reoriented away from strategic defense to focus on TMD. Technology developed to counter Soviet strategic missiles was used to develop a pair of high-altitude TMD systems, THAAD and Navy Upper Tier. Even though these systems had technical capabilities far beyond those of any previously developed TMD systems and clearly raised serious problems regarding ABM Treaty compliance (as was acknowledged by Administration statements at that time) there was virtually no public discussion of the ABM Treaty implications of these systems while they were being developed. Not until almost the last possible moment, in late 1993, just before field testing of these systems was scheduled to begin, was the issue of the compatibility of these system with the ABM Treaty publicly raised. However, by this time it was too late. These systems, THAAD in particular, were well along in development and were now viewed by both the Congress and the Administration as essential defense programs. Thus the U.S. was abruptly confronted with the choice between terminating these core missile defense programs or severely weakening the ABM treaty to permit them to continue. In this situation, it is no surprise that it was the Treaty that gave way.

It now appears that there may be essentially no serious debate over the Treaty compliance of the U.S. NMD system until the actual decision to deploy is made and an actual system design is presented. At that point, it will no longer be possible to pretend that the system will be Treaty compliant. However, by the time any serious debate over the merits of the Treaty versus an NMD system deployment can take place, the NMD deployment will be well underway and it will be too late to save the Treaty.

References

1 Helen Dewar, "Senate Republicans Again Fail to Revive Missile Defense Plan," Washington Post, September 10, 1998, p. 4.

2 Lisa Burgess and George I. Seffers, "Gansler Pledges to Field NMD," Defense News, March 2-8, 1998, p. 4.

3 Newsbreaks, Aviation Week and Space Technology, May 4, 1998, p. 19.

4 Michael C. Sirak, "Pentagon Picks Commercial Variant Over Minuteman for NMD Booster," Inside Missile Defense, August 5, 1998, pp. 1, 13-14.

5 William B. Scott, "Missile Sensor Flyby Boosts NMD Outlook," Aviation Week and Space Technology, January 26, 1998, pp. 24-25.

6 Lisa Burgess, "BMDO May Allow Kill Vehicle Contract Without Flyoff," Defense News, September 7-13, 1998, p. 28.

7 Statement of General Lester L. Lyles, Director of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, Subcommittee on Defense, Committee on Appropriations, U.S. Senate, April 22, 1998.

8 U.S. Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, 1997 Report to Congress, p. 3-9.

9. Statement of General Lester L. Lyles, Director of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, Subcommittee on Research and Development, Committee on National Security, U.S. House of Representatives, March 6, 1997.

10. Daniel G. Dupont, "Administration, Army at Odds on Ability To Defend U.S. from Single Site," Inside Missile Defense, January 10, 1996, pp. 4-6.

11. Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, "National Missile Defense Integrated Test Program," Fact Sheet, April 1998.

12. Legislation was recently introduced in the House of Representatives calling for missile defense coverage not only of the 50 states, but also of U.S territories such as Guam and Puerto Rico. Michael C. Sirak, "House Lawmakers Want U.S. Territories Under Missile Defense Umbrella," Inside Missile Defense, May 27, 1998, p. 2.

13. "Newsbreaks," Aviation Week and Space Technology, February 16, 1998, p. 18.

14. Darcia R. Harris, "Missile Defense Contract Award Brings ABM Treaty Issues to the Fore," Inside Missile Defense, May 13, 1998, pp. 33-34.

15. William B. Scott, "Missile Sensor Flyby Boosts NMD Outlook," Aviation Week and Space Technology, January 26, 1998, pp. 24-25.

George Lewis is Associate Director of the MIT Security Studies Program. Address: E38-666, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA; tel +1-617-253-3846, fax +1-617-258-5750, email: gnlewis@mit.edu.