14 janvier 2019 | International, Terrestre, C4ISR

What to look for in the upcoming Missile Defense Review

By:

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon's Missile Defense Review is in the final stages of pre-release, sources tell Defense News, after more than a year of release delays.

The review, a congressionally mandated document looking at the status of America's missile defense capabilities, could be unveiled as soon as the next week, although it has yet to be briefed to Congress, sources say. And while there appears to be significant momentum to actually releasing the document soon, the release has seemed imminent in the past, only to be pulled back at the last minute.

The document has been the focus of intense speculation from both the missile defense and nonproliferation communities, with a wide expectation that the document will call for investments in new missile defense technologies and, potentially, a notable change in America's missile defense posture toward Russia and China.

For years, America has maintained that missile defense systems capable of defeating major strategic systems are being designed and deployed not at another great power, but only at rogue actors — chiefly Iran and North Korea — who might seek to strike at the U.S. or its allies.

The National Security Strategy — the overall security guidance released by the Trump administration in late 2017 — underlines this thinking, stating that “the United States is deploying a layered missile defense system focused on North Korea and Iran to defend our homeland against missile attacks. This system will include the ability to defeat missile threats prior to launch. Enhanced missile defense is not intended to undermine strategic stability or disrupt longstanding strategic relationships with Russia or China.”

But analysts, such as Thomas Karako of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, have argued that in an era of great power competition, as illustrated in the National Defense Strategy, it's foolish to lack a plan for defending American assets and allies against China and Russia.

“For so many decades we've been standing there like Samson, pushing apart Russia and China on the one hand and missile defenses on the other, saying they're not related,” Karako said. “So in some ways, that implicit connection [from previous reviews] could become much more explicit and pursued more aggressively, and really it should be.”

Citing a need to defend against Russian and Chinese weapons is simply stating a need to defend against a major challenger. But China particularly seems to grow as a concern year over year for the U.S. government; it's notable that acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan's message to his staff upon taking over the top job at the Pentagon was to focus on “China, China, China.”

Members of the nonproliferation community, such as Laura Grego of the Union of Concerned Scientists, argue that the technology needed to ensure America can defeat a major nation's use of strategic weapons is so expensive and technically challenging that getting to that point will divert funding from better projects. That spending decision would also encourage potential adversaries to invest more, not less, in nuclear weapons to counter America's perceived missile defense improvements, the argument goes.

“Even absent a specific policy to take on Russia and China more explicitly, planned missile defense plans continue to be made in patterns that Russia and particularly China will not be able to ignore,” she said. “Trying to counter China and Russia's strategic deterrent with missile defense is of course a fool's errand and gets us further from reducing nuclear weapons, not closer. I hope that wiser heads prevail.”

It is important to differentiate between regional missile defense systems being placed to defend allies against Russia or China, and the bigger homeland defense mission, said Kingston Reif of the Arms Control Association. For example, based on congressional guidance, it is expected the review will include ideas for countering hypersonic weapons, a threat currently originating from only Russia and China.

“If the review goes so far as to broaden the role of missile defense to defend the U.S. homeland against Russian and Chinese missile attack[s], that would mark a major and radical change in U.S. policy,” Reif said. “The United States, Russia and China aren't taking into account the concerns the others have about their offensive and defensive developments sufficiently seriously to avoid increased risks of instability.”

Technical capabilities

While the great power competition may be a key driver, it is unlikely to be the only new aspect of the report.

Karako hopes to see a layout for how missile defense capabilities fit into America's overall deterrence strategy, noting: “All capabilities are finite. So how is it that finite active missile defenses can contribute to deterring a Russia or China?"

“Everyone knows if they want to, they could overwhelm a given defense. But it really comes down to how do certain capabilities deter aggression, opportunism, limited strikes, all these kind of things,” he said. “So I'll be looking for the articulation of how it contributes to overall deterrence for ourselves and our allies.”

He's also keeping an eye out for how the document defines “integrated” missile defense systems, and whether planners can avoid stovepiping capabilities.

Reif, for his part, is looking to see if there are increases in the Ground-Based Interceptor force in Alaska and California, or the creation of an East Coast missile defense site.

Technologically, the report is expected to push for so-called left-of-launch technologies — capabilities that can take out a potential missile threat before it even leaves the launcher.

“If you can see it early, you can kill it early,” Gen. John Hyten, the head of U.S. Strategic Command, said in August. “Driving that equation to the left has huge operational advantages because to actually shoot down a missile that somebody launched that comes back down on their head, do you think they are going to shoot another one? I don't think so. They are not going to shoot another one because it's just going to come right back down on their head, and so they stop shooting. Isn't that the whole point?”

It's also expected the MDR will call for investment in laser systems, with Michael Griffin, the Pentagon's research and engineering head, saying in November that “you're going to see in upcoming budgets for missile defense a renewed emphasis on laser scaling across several” technology areas.

In addition, expect talk of a space-based layer for missile defense, although that may be primarily focused on sensors rather than intercept capabilities — at least for now.

Asked about space-based interceptors, Reif said: “Like a zombie that can't be killed, the idea keeps coming back. Pursuing space-based interceptors would be unaffordable, technically dubious and highly destabilizing.”

The document, as ordered by Congress, must include milestone targets for developing new capabilities. It requires statements of five- and 10-year programmatic goals for developing capabilities, “as well as desired end states and milestones for integration and interoperability with allies, and a statement on the role of international cooperation,” per congressional guidance.

Getting the MDR published has proven to be a nearly Sisyphean task for the Trump administration.

Pentagon officials originally said the document would be released in late 2017 — then February, then mid-May and then late in the summer. In September, John Rood, who as undersecretary of defense for policy is the point man for the MDR, indicated the report could come out in a matter of weeks.

And in October, Shanahan, then the deputy secretary of defense, said the document had been done “for some time.”

There is also widespread speculation in the missile defense community that the review has been delayed, at least in part because of the warmed relations between the Trump administration and North Korea.

Notably, the mid-May time frame for release, which was floated by Shanahan in April, lined up President Donald Trump's planned meeting in Singapore with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. While that meeting was canceled and then eventually happened in June, there was a sense the Pentagon did not want to do anything that could jeopardize those talks, such as releasing a report discussing how the U.S. could counter North Korean capabilities.

https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2019/01/11/what-to-look-for-in-the-upcoming-missile-defense-review

Sur le même sujet

  • Augmentation du budget Défense de l’Allemagne : un challenge pour la France

    23 mars 2022 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

    Augmentation du budget Défense de l’Allemagne : un challenge pour la France

    L'augmentation très forte de son budget de Défense par l'Allemagne représente un challenge pour la France, qui devra répondre avec la même ambition pour conserver son « leadership » en matière de Défense en Europe, relève La Tribune. « Pour garder son rang, la France doit répondre avec la même ambition et les mêmes objectifs en disant qu'elle va augmenter son budget et qu'elle souhaite faire des coopérations. La France doit saisir la balle au bond », estime un observateur cité par le quotidien. Le Président de la République, Emmanuel Macron, a confirmé le 17 mars la trajectoire pour 2025 de l'actuelle Loi de programmation militaire, à hauteur de 50 Md€. « Nous avons lancé plusieurs projets qui devront se poursuivre de coopérations capacitaires, et la France portera la défense d'un réinvestissement dans le fonds européen de Défense au niveau européen pour pouvoir justement aller plus loin et consolider cet effort », a-t-il précisé. « Je demanderai au chef d'état-major des Armées de pouvoir réévaluer tous les besoins qui apparaissent, à la lumière de la guerre que nous sommes en train de vivre et de la mise en œuvre de la Loi de programmation militaire depuis 2019 », a-t-il également indiqué. La Tribune du 22 mars

  • BAE Systems, QinetiQ sign pact on drone collaboration

    12 septembre 2023 | International, Aérospatial, C4ISR

    BAE Systems, QinetiQ sign pact on drone collaboration

    The two companies are collaborating on Jackdaw, a low-cost, swarm-capable drone that is meant to be disposable if needed.

  • South Korean military to upgrade ‘friend or foe’ ID capability

    25 septembre 2018 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR

    South Korean military to upgrade ‘friend or foe’ ID capability

    By: Jeff Jeong SEOUL — Thousands of South Korean jet fighters, helicopters, warships and missile systems will be fitted with sophisticated identifications technologies by the mid-2020s under a major weapons upgrade program, according to the military and defense companies. For the $2.2 billion deal to switch the decades-old Mode-4 Identification Friend or Foe, or IFF, system to the latest Mode-5, South Korea's arms procurement agency has started issuing a request for proposals. “The number of equipment eligible for the Mode-5 upgrade account approximately 2,000 related to 70 weapons systems,” according to a spokesman for the Defense Acquisition Program Administration. “The request for proposals will continued to be issued separately by the types of weapons systems over the coming weeks.” The upgrade program is in line with the transfer of IFF systems to the Mode-5 version by the U.S military, as the South Korean military conducts key operations with U.S. forces on the Korean Peninsula under the authority of the Combined Forces Command. By 2020, all NATO nations are required to introduce the Mode-5 systems, using advanced cryptographic techniques to secure their systems against electronic deception by adversaries. “This is a huge program as for the numbers and budget, and is strategically important to upgrading the battlefield capability of the South Korean military and its joint operations with allied forces,” said Kim Dae-young, a military analyst at the Korea Research Institute for National Strategy. “The new encrypted system will allow South Korean and its allied troops to work safely together, reducing the risk of friendly fire incidents, and it will also offer commanders a better view of the battlefield,” Kim added. IFF works by sending coded signals, with equipment on friendly planes and ships able to receive and instantly decode the encrypted challenge message, then send the appropriate response to identify themselves. Three South Korean defense manufacturers are competing for the IFF upgrade contract by teaming up with foreign IFF developers. They are Hanwha Systems, teaming up with U.S. company Raytheon and Hensoldt of Germany; LIG Nex1, with Italy's Leonardo and Thales of France; and Korea Aerospace Industries, joining hands with BAE Systems of the United Kingdom. Unlike the installation of the Mode-4, the technologies of which belong to foreign IFF makers, domestic companies are involved in the Mode-5 systems development and will locally produce the equipment for cost-effectiveness and sustainable integrated logistics support, according to Defense Acquisition Program Administration officials. Hanwha Systems, a leading defense electronics company formerly known as Samsung Thales, claims it has the advantage of having know-how related to IFF integration and design. “Our company was in charge of almost all Mode-4 upgrade programs in cooperation with foreign partners,” said Yoon Seok-joon, a consultant with Hanwha Systems' avionics business team. “Through the experience, we have much better knowledge of IFF design and functions than other local competitors. This is a clear advantage.” LIG Nex1, a precision missile developer, formed a task force in 2016 for Mode-5 upgrade work to seek related technology for localization. As a result, the company successfully localized a Mode-5 system for its KP-SAM Shin-Gung (or Chiron) shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles with the help of Thales, which is contracted to provide Mode-5 technologies for ground weapons systems. “Based on the successful development of a Mode-5 device for Shin-Gung, we're now able to independently develop Mode-5 equipment for other weapons systems, such as Hybrid Biho air defense system; Chunma short-range surface-to-air missile; and TPS-830K low-altitude radar,” said Park Jung-ho, program manager of LIG Nex1's Mode-5 upgrade team. To help facilitate the certification of its Mode-5 systems by the U.S. Defense Department, LIG Nex1 recently signed an agreement with the U.S. defense system certification contractor KBR. Korea Aerospace Industries is expected to win contracts for Mode-5 devices to be fitted on advanced aircraft, including F-15K fighters, T-50 trainer jets and Surion utility helicopters. KAI develops the Surion platform. “We own thousands of platforms around the world with this product, so we have lots of experiences in the U.S. and other countries as well as with this IFF piece of equipment,” said Rob Peer, president of BAE Systems in Korea. “It's advanced technology with low weight, low power and cost effective. All of those things make it very effective.” Peer stressed that he feels BAE Systems' Mode-5 is the best fit for the systems of the F-35 fighter jet, which South Korea is to deploy in the coming years. https://www.defensenews.com/global/asia-pacific/2018/09/24/south-korean-military-to-upgrade-friend-or-foe-id-capability

Toutes les nouvelles