Doubts Trail ‘Son of Star Wars’ Proposal

Protecting Americans from a foreign missile attack has become the most daunting military challenge of the last two decades--a technological feat that some say is more difficult and costly than building the atom bomb.

Setting aside those risks, President Bush pushed missile defense to the forefront of his national security plans earlier this month, reigniting intense debate here and abroad over the political ramifications of fielding such a system and over whether it is even possible.

In theory, the system finally would erase the last vestiges of the Cold War threat of instant annihilation, providing the U.S. and its allies protection from ballistic missiles through an array of weapons fired or launched from the ground, sea, air and space.

But critics contend that in the nearly two decades since President Reagan launched the “Star Wars” program, and after spending about $75 billion searching for the perfect antimissile system, the Pentagon isn’t any closer to deploying an effective shield against nuclear attack.

“This is the most difficult thing that the Defense Department has ever tried to do,” said Philip Coyle, the Pentagon’s former chief of test and evaluation. “We’re trying to do something that is more difficult than developing the atom bomb, but without the urgency or the national commitment.”

Military planners still have not resolved the overall architecture of even a limited shield against a missile attack or defined how all the advanced elements of a defensive system would work.

Moreover, each element of the system would require advances in a broad range of technologies, including sensors to distinguish real warheads from decoys, high-powered chemical lasers able to shoot hundreds of miles and “kill vehicles” with unparalleled reliability.

“It’s going to be very tough to weigh all these disparate systems and put them together into an integrated architecture,” said Loren Thompson, an advocate of missile defense at the Arlington, Va.-based Lexington Institute. “They have different operators, different technologies and they all have to be coordinated. It’s going to be very complicated.”

Estimates of the cost of even a limited system vary widely, from an economical $80 billion to as much as $300 billion. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld called the criticisms of the technology a “red herring,” although he acknowledged that more research is needed.

“We have no intention of deploying something that doesn’t work, but what the definition of ‘work’ is, is terribly important,” Rumsfeld said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “If anyone thinks that you’re going to deploy something full-blown that works perfectly--I mean, if that were the case, the Wright brothers failed dozens and dozens of times before they flew the airplane. If they’d quit after the first failure, we wouldn’t have airplanes.”

Allies, Foes Have Been Unreceptive to Plan

The Bush administration is facing stiff resistance to the plan from allies and foes. Dozens of envoys have been sent to meet with foreign officials, arguing that deploying the system would help alleviate concerns of nuclear proliferation. But the reception so far has been cool.

China has been one of the more vocal critics, contending that much of the system, including the proposal to build a battery of interceptors designed to destroy about a dozen ballistic missiles, or about what China reportedly has in its arsenal, specifically targets them.

Indeed, a strategic review underway in the Pentagon reportedly recommends redirecting the focus of military planning from Europe to Asia, including developing new long-range weapons to counter China’s military power.

To build a meaningful missile defense, the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty would have to be significantly modified or scrapped. The treaty, itself controversial since the day it was proposed, restricted the Soviet Union and the United States from building a shield against intercontinental ballistic missiles, which are capable of spanning half the globe in 30 minutes and showering a city with multiple nuclear warheads.

Behind the treaty was the idea that if both countries remained naked to attack neither would risk starting a nuclear war. The concept of “mutual assured destruction” was considered a powerful deterrent to launching the missiles.

But Bush and missile defense proponents say much has changed. The Soviet Union collapsed, ending the Cold War, and new threats have risen as additional nations have obtained nuclear weapons, built missiles or threatened to do so.

“We need a new framework that allows us to build missile defenses to counter the different threats of today’s world,” Bush said in his May 1 speech, kicking off what is now being called the “Son of Star Wars.”

“We have more work to do to determine the final form the defenses might take,” he said. “We will explore all of these options further.”

Exactly what Bush will choose is still up in the air. But from his speech and in recent remarks made by Rumsfeld, analysts have gleaned some idea of the shape of Bush’s missile defense plan.

Bush probably will call for accelerating work on ground-based interceptors that President Clinton set in motion last year with the idea of eventually developing a “layered shield” involving antimissile weapons based in the sea, air and ultimately in space, Thompson said.

Hoping to sell the idea to its allies, the White House already has begun dropping the word “national” from missile defense, saying the system could protect nations from both intercontinental ballistic missiles and short-range rockets such as Iraqi Scuds used during the Persian Gulf War.

Under the scenario envisioned by the Pentagon, satellites with infrared sensors initially would detect missile launches and track the flight path, providing information to the various antimissile systems.

A short-range missile could be shot down by U.S. Army-operated ground-based lasers and missiles, by Navy ships off the coast or by a modified Air Force Boeing 747-400 aircraft flying nearby and carrying chemical lasers.

Space-based lasers orbiting above and interceptor missiles based in Alaska could knock out intercontinental ballistic missiles during their booster and mid-course stages.

All of the systems are in varying degrees of development with the interceptor closest to deployment, perhaps a limited one within three years. Space-based laser is by far the most complex technology and it could be another generation or more before it could be deployed, according to the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis.

Critics contend missile defense offers a false sense of security, citing other previous attempts at defending the U.S. from attacks, including batteries of 1960s-era Nike missiles that ringed many U.S. cities.

The history of missile defense is replete with failed starts. In the early days of the program, the Pentagon poured billions into such exotic technologies as beam weapons, orbiting nuclear reactors, space-based mirrors and electromagnetic rail guns that would fire high-velocity bullets from space.

By 1991, then-President George Bush backed a streamlined $41-billion missile defense system--called GPALS for global protection against limited strike--that aimed to quickly deploy a system that could counter an attack by 200 missiles. Then, as now, the technology was unable to discriminate between real missiles and decoys and the interceptors proved unreliable.

“They have been testing this for the last two decades and they have missed more often than not,” said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a defense and space policy group that has been a vocal detractor of missile defense. “Are any of these things going to make me sleep easier at night? No, I’ll still be afraid of nuclear war.”

Jon B. Kutler, president of Quarterdeck Investment Partners Inc., a defense investment bank, said, “This could be the most expensive video game that didn’t work.”

Land-Based Interceptors

As the primary system for National Missile Defense, the $60-billion program involves launching a booster rocket carrying a “kill vehicle” that would seek out and slam into a warhead in space. The idea is similar to firing a bullet at a bullet.

Coyle said the task is even more difficult than shooting down a bullet with a bullet. “It’s like trying to hit a hole in one and the hole is moving at 17,000 miles per hour with a whole bunch of other decoy holes,” Coyle said.

Although two of three test launches failed to hit a missile, Pentagon advisors are devising a preliminary plan to deploy a limited system by 2004, two years earlier than planned and before the end of Bush’s term.

Some analysts believe that only about five interceptors could be ready by then, a fraction of the 100 envisioned. The interceptors, designed primarily to defend against North Korea, Iraq and Iran, would be based in Alaska with a second potential site in Grand Forks, N.D.

A complement of 100 interceptors could protect the U.S. from China’s current inventory of about two dozen long-range missiles but would have little effect against any massive launch from Russia.

Although it is closest to deployment, it is also the most controversial. Fifty Nobel laureates signed a letter last year warning that decoys easily can fool it and that deploying the interceptors could ignite another arms race.

A critical fourth test scheduled for August could weigh heavily on Bush’s plan. Boeing Co. is the lead contractor and its engineers in Anaheim are working on the booster rocket.

Sea-Based Interceptors

Many missile defense advocates believe the Navy’s sea-based system could be the most promising because of its mobility and its flexibility to shoot down missiles in both booster stage and mid-course.

Under Pentagon plans, the Navy’s Aegis Cruisers, which were designed to defend Navy ships against short-range cruise missiles and aircraft attacks, would be expanded to carry interceptors to knock out ballistic missiles.

But analysts say the Navy interceptors, armed with kill vehicles to destroy warheads, must be deployed close to the launchers to be effective. Interceptors could shoot down missiles fired from North Korea but would be useless against missiles launched further inland. Interceptors also face the same decoy problems as their land-based cousins.

Because Aegis cruisers already are in operation, equipping the ships with the interceptors would be less costly than a ground-based system. The Navy, which estimates the system would cost about $15 billion, is hoping to have a theater defense system to protect against short-range missiles on Aegis ships by 2006. Under the plan, seven new Navy ships costing about $1 billion would be built, produced either by General Dynamics Corp., based in Falls Church, Va., or Woodland Hills-based Litton Industries Inc., now a unit of Northrop Grumman Corp.

The Council for a Livable World, an arms control advocacy group, contends the program costs will exceed $47 billion.

Airborne Laser

The U.S. Air Force’s marquee $11-billion project involves equipping a modified Boeing 747-400 jumbo jet with a chemical laser that would be able to shoot down short-range ballistic missiles.

Designed to protect troops in the field, the program eventually would include fielding seven ABL planes by 2009. Two planes would be in the air at all times, flying in a circle-eight pattern while five would be able to rush to a combat zone within 24 hours.

Because of the laser’s limited range--about 200 miles (exactly how much is classified)--the plane’s primary role would be to provide defense for a regional conflict.

The plane would fly at about 40,000 feet and shoot down a missile as it clears the clouds, because its infrared sensors can’t see through them. Once a missile was detected, the beam director would track the missile and measure atmospheric distortion before the laser was fired through a mirror that instantly would adjust the laser beam for the distortion.

But critics question the accuracy of the beams and whether the laser can adjust for the atmospheric distortions. They also worry that the plane flying near hostile territory could be vulnerable to attack.

Boeing is providing the airplane and TRW Inc.’s space group in Redondo Beach is developing the laser.

Space-Based Laser

Although furthest from deployment, a space-based laser could be the most promising option for defending the U.S. and its allies. It is also closest to President Reagan’s vision for a national missile defense that has been derided as “Star Wars” because of its focus on lasers.

The project is dubbed “Death Star,” and Air Force officials say it could launch a demonstration laser by 2010 with an in-orbit shoot down of a missile about 18 months later, more than two years ahead of schedule. Developing, launching and testing the demonstration laser is projected to cost about $4 billion.

Full deployment, which would involve sending six laser-equipped satellites into space, won’t occur until well into the next decade and could cost $70 billion to $80 billion.

If the U.S. were to pursue only a space-based laser option for missile defense, 24 such satellites would be needed, Air Force officials said.

Much of the architecture is similar to what the Air Force is installing on its airborne laser.

The laser is undergoing tests at TRW’s Capistrano test facility near San Clemente.