Missile defence in Europe
Behind America's shield
Aug 21st 2008
From The Economist print edition
A deal on missile defences angers Russia even though
they may not work
THE east Europeans
have little reason to
fear a strike from
Iran. So why are
they eagerly signing
up to America's
system to intercept
Iranian missiles?
Because they are
scared of Russia.
Within days of
Russia's invasion of
Georgia, Poland had
agreed to host ten
American
interceptors.
Ukraine offered to link up its early-warning radars and contribute to surveillance
in space. The Czech Republic had already agreed to host the missile-tracking
radar.
"We have crossed the Rubicon," said the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, as
the deal was done. Russia said any country involved in America's missile defences
made itself a legitimate target for nuclear attack. Condoleezza Rice, the American
secretary of state, who went to Poland to sign the deal this week, retorted that
such threatening language "isn't tolerable".
Missile defences cannot fend off Russia's huge arsenal, but countries hosting
them place themselves under America's umbrella, in effect becoming part of the
defence of its homeland. American officials said the war in Georgia could have
made further delay seem like surrender to Russia. But Mr Tusk offered another
view: after Russia's invasion, America at last accepted Polish demands for help in
modernising its armed forces, and for the deployment of an American Patriot antiaircraft
(and anti-missile) battery in Poland.
Iran strengthened America's case by boasting (apparently falsely) this week that
it had tested a missile capable of launching satellites. Previously Iran claimed its
missiles could reach targets as far away as Ukraine and the Balkans. But if it ever
put objects into orbit, that would allow it to fire warheads a lot farther. The
Kremlin still plays down the Iranian threat, and says America's real objective is to
neutralise Russia's nuclear forces. America has invited the Russians to join in, to
no avail.
Missile defences do not just pose a geopolitical risk that could worsen the Wesťs
poor relations with Russia. They are also a technological gamble. The system is
not fully proven. The two-stage interceptors that will be deployed in Europe have
not been built yet, and the geometry of using ground interceptors against a future
Iranian threat has still to be tested.
The Pentagon's independent office to evaluate new equipment said last October
that it was far from being able to certify "a high probability of [the system]
working in an operationally effective manner once deployed". It said intercepts of
Iranian weapons were "very distinct" from past tests against simulated North
Korean missiles over the Pacific, since shorter distances require a quicker
response. The European system must also be able to deal with two kinds of
missiles, intercontinental-range missiles fired at America and intermediate-range
weapons fired at Europe, with different trajectories and speeds.
General Trey Obering, director of the Missile Defence Agency (MDA), calls
Pentagon evaluators "very pessimistic". He says the two-stage interceptor is a
simplified version of the three-stage version used above the Pacific. The principles
of missile defence differ little regardless of range. Yet critics insist that America is
wasting a fortune for an impossible technological fix. It has spent more than $110
billion on missile defences since Ronald Reagan launched his "star wars" Strategic
Defence Initiative 25 years ago, evoking an impossibly ambitious "shield that
could protect us from nuclear missiles just as a roof protects a family from rain".
The new system is less ambitious, designed to fend off only a small number of
missiles--but it will still cost as much as $10 billion a year.
The MDA is developing some 16 overlapping systems, designed to hit missiles in
different phases of flight on the philosophy of "shoot early, shoot often". The
European system will try to intercept missiles in mid-course in space, where
warheads separate. In several tests, the MDA has shown that it can "hit a bullet
with a bullet" or even, in the words of General Obering, "hit a spot on a bullet". In
February an American ship shot down a spy satellite that had spun out of control.
But can the system be fooled by counter-measures? The lack of atmosphere in
space means that missiles travel predictably, but it also means that decoys such
as balloons move identically. How to identify a decoy dressed up as a warhead, or
a warhead wrapped in a decoy? Critics such as Theodore Postol, of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, say this problem is insurmountable,
however powerful the radars and other sensors. "It is like trying to find a bomb
hidden in a pile of suitcases only by looking at them, without being able to shake
them and without sniffer dogs," he argues.
Not so, says Keith Englander, chief scientist at the MDA. Even in space there are
"residual" effects that help to identify warheads. He says the system can already
distinguish between warheads and balloons. It cannot yet handle more complex
counter-measures, he admits, but these are harder to deploy than critics imagine.
Yet some criticisms have hit the mark. The MDA wants to develop new ways of
watching a missile's flight "from birth to death" to try to identify a warhead. And
if it cannot spot the real target, it is developing interceptors with multiple "kill
vehicles" to destroy decoys too. Besides, the critics have a big weakness: if
missile defences were just expensive junk, why would the Russians protest so
loudly?