Potential U.S. Enemies Amass High-Tech Arms : Military: Gulf War-type weapons are reaching Third World nations. Pentagon lacks effective countermeasures.

Many sophisticated American weapons that were stars in the Persian Gulf War are becoming widely available to potential Third World adversaries, who are stocking up and even manufacturing their own, U.S. officials warn.

The consequence, experts said last week, is that Americans are likely to suffer higher casualties in future wars--a risk that could impede the United States’ willingness to intervene in regional conflicts.

The list of weapons includes high-tech equipment such as night-vision goggles, satellite positioning systems, antitank and antiaircraft missiles and even primitive--but effective--cruise missiles, which can be used against ammunition depots and large ships.

Third World countries are also beginning to acquire conventional submarines. While these are a far cry from the American nuclear submarine fleet, they can easily be refitted to fire cruise missiles or launch naval mines, military officials said.

While the United States still has the edge in most of these areas, it has not developed effective countermeasures against use of such weapons by an enemy--even for the relatively primitive versions that countries such as Iraq or Iran might acquire.

Henry D. Sokolski, a former Pentagon weapons expert who heads the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, argued that the Gulf War might have been far more difficult for the United States to win if the Iraqis had been able to acquire weaponry that now can be purchased.

Much of the Desert Storm-era technology that is making its way into the hands of potential Third World adversaries is disturbing to experts:

* Night-vision goggles. They provide users with the crucial ability to “see” surrounding terrain and troops in darkness. They are now sold routinely on the open market. Even Cable News Network has used such lenses to televise night-landings by U.S. troops.

* Satellite positioning systems. These allow commanders to use space-based signals to determine precise locations. They are openly sold on the civilian market and can easily be applied to make Iraqi-style Scud missiles more accurate.

* Anti-ship and antitank missiles. They can be manufactured from components widely available from Russian or Western sources. Some pricier cruise missiles even have radar-evading “stealth” design features.

* Conventional submarines. Although the U.S. Navy is good at hunting Russian subs, its gear is designed to operate primarily in mid-ocean, not shallow-water areas where Third World navies are likely to prowl. Iran, Iraq, Libya, Algeria and Syria all have acquired some conventional subs.

Behind the proliferation of such weapons is a series of developments that have revolutionized the high-tech weapons market worldwide.

Much of the new technology, such as satellite positioning and imaging systems, has legitimate civilian applications and is now being marketed--or in some cases leased to subscribers--by commercial firms.

With the Cold War’s end, the United States and its allies have effectively scrapped the strict export controls that prohibited the sale of such technology, enabling manufacturers to ship components to virtually anyone who wants to buy them.

Commercial advances on satellite technology have outstripped the military prototypes of even a few years ago, meaning the systems foreign governments can buy today often are more sophisticated than those that U.S. forces used in Operation Desert Storm.

Pentagon strategists say Third World countries are already able to buy sophisticated cruise missiles from Russia, which is offering a wide array of weapons in a bid to obtain more hard currency.

“If you’ve got the money, Russia will damned near sell you anything except nuclear weapons,” said a Defense Department official familiar with international weapons transactions. “And most of it is very high-quality stuff.”

China, which already has demonstrated considerable skill in cloning Western and Russian weapons, is not far behind in becoming a major supplier to Third World military forces. It is actively marketing weapons all over the world.

Beijing, for example, recently sold Iran 10 Ho Dung patrol boats bristling with anti-ship missiles and will be able to begin rapid production of nuclear submarines in a few years, U.S. officials said. So far, China has shown little concern about who buys its weapons.

The issue is important because, while the United States still has a solid edge on such technology, adversaries that possess such weapons will be more difficult to beat in the next regional conflict that the United States becomes embroiled in.

Before Third World countries began acquiring such systems, there was no contest.

In Operation Desert Storm, for example, the United States and its allies defeated Iraq’s army--then the largest in the Middle East--in six weeks and with 615 U.S. casualties.

But Williamson Murray, a former Pentagon planner who is now a professor of military and strategic history at Ohio State University, warned that the Gulf campaign might have been far different if the Iraqis had had satellite imagery or cruise missiles.

With today’s access to satellite data, for example, Murray said Iraq might well have blunted the “Hail Mary” feint that U.S. tank forces mounted to make an end-run around enemy forces to destroy Iraqi armored vehicles.

And Iraqi Scuds, which provided Baghdad with a psychological advantage in the war--and almost drew Israel into the fray--would have been up to 100 times more accurate with satellite data.

Such advantages might have enabled Hussein to deprive the United States of its sanctuaries at Saudi Arabian air bases, blow up key U.S. ammunition dumps, track U.S. tank movements and interrupt allied supply lines.

“It wouldn’t have been this neat little war that we remember now,” Murray said.

Disturbing to some defense planners is that, despite the increasing threat from the technology boom, the United States has no weapons capable of coping with some of the new, more sophisticated equipment that Third World countries are fielding.

* For all the recent improvements in the Patriot air-defense missile, for example, the Pentagon still is unable to shoot down enemy cruise missiles and has only begun to embark on programs designed to develop such weapons.

* Enemy forces can use much of the positioning data from U.S. navigation satellites, even if the American military tried to jam the signal. And commercial services routinely sell satellite imaging data to whatever country wants to buy it--with few questions asked.

* Many of the computer systems on which the U.S. military relies--particularly civilian satellites and communications systems--are vulnerable to sabotage, and neither military nor civilian officials seem eager to devise ways of protecting them.

Even the Pentagon’s new Counter-Proliferation Initiative--designed to bolster the ability of U.S. forces to deal with the rapid spread of new, more powerful weapons to potential Third World adversaries--deals exclusively with nuclear, chemical and biological warfare.

Sokolski pointed out that, in today’s world of reluctant superpowers and instant television coverage, Third World adversaries need not actually defeat the United States militarily; all they have to do is leverage small, even temporary gains to make their point.

For example, Iraq’s surprise Scud attack on Israel in 1991, which destroyed only a handful of houses, almost succeeded in overturning the entire allied strategy by heightening pressure on Israel to enter the war. This surely would have brought more Arab states to fight beside Iraq.

In another instance, a raid by a U.S. Ranger company in Somalia last Oct. 3--which left 18 U.S. soldiers dead and dozens wounded--sparked an immediate push in Congress to pull U.S. forces out entirely, though previous U.S. casualties in Somalia had been relatively light.

Sokolski wants the United States to begin working on crash programs to develop new weapons that can head off threats, such as from cruise missiles, and to design new technology that can help protect U.S. satellite data and computer systems from sabotage. He also wants the United States and its allies to restrict the missiles, mines, submarines and other such weapons that they are willing to sell to potential adversaries, so it will be easier for the West to design effective countermeasures.

Admittedly, not everyone is as worried about the new danger.

Air Force Col. John A. Worden, a chief Pentagon strategist during the Gulf War, argued that critics are exaggerating the threat from the spread of such technology, contending that the United States still has the ability to stay ahead and is working on the problem actively.

While some Third World countries may be able to “get at chunks of” the new technology, Worden said, “for things to have any real impact, they’d have to be able to employ them relatively quickly and in a relatively coherent way--and they can’t. I can’t think of anything that Iraq could have owned at the start of the Gulf War that really would have made a difference,” he asserted.

Worden contended that the Pentagon already has adequate programs in place to develop the kinds of weapons that are needed to meet the new technological threat. The key, he argued, is for U.S. research and development teams to continue their work. “We simply cannot afford to stand on our technological laurels,” he said.

Retired Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Bernard E. Trainor, another key military strategist, agreed. “It’s obviously serious anytime anyone has an improved capability,” he said, “but other countries aren’t likely to come up with the system of weapons that we have.”

Even so, Trainor said, the fact that Third World countries are buying more conventional submarines is ominous for the Navy.

“Everything our Navy has developed to counter subs is designed for deep water, not shallow areas,” he said. “This will be a much tougher world.”

But Don M. Snider, a former Pentagon strategist now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, argued that, while the Third World’s push for new weapons may not be sufficient to defeat the United States, it could be a serious threat in two or three years.

“The issue is not whether potential adversaries have more of the new technology but whether the United States is managing to stay as far ahead of the pack as it was during the Gulf War,” Snider said.