Critical Mass #4: Emerging Missile Threat Concentrates the Minds of U.S. Allies; Japanese Admiral Urges End to ABM Treaty
(Washington, D.C.): Samuel Johnson’s phrase that hanging “concentrates the mind
wonderfully”
is an apt metaphor for the effect palpable missile threats are having on those most immediately at
risk. The question is: What will it take and how soon will it be before the Clinton
Administration is compelled to take this danger seriously — and to act to defend the
American people against it.
Taepo Dong 1.5
The State Department acknowledged today that U.S. intelligence has reexamined data
collected in
the course of North Korea’s recent test flight of its Taepo Dong 1 missile and concluded that the
missile’s projected range should be increased by a factor of four. It now appears that
this ballistic
missile, whose trajectory caused it to overfly Japan, is a three-stage missile, rather
than a two-stage device as originally believed.
While the Taepo Dong’s third-stage — assessed to be a solid-fueled rocket — did not perform
properly (unlike the first two, liquid-fueled stages), the mere fact that Pyongyang is flight-testing
such systems suggests the North Korean regime is not only now capable of striking the Japanese
Home Islands, South Korea, Taiwan and U.S. bases in the Western Pacific. It will shortly be able
credibly to threaten attacks against Alaska and parts of Hawaii.
Key Allies Are Getting It
This reality, and the larger trend towards missile proliferation of which the Taepo Dong is just
one
example, has begun to concentrate the minds of key U.S. allies who now find themselves in the
cross-hairs of enemy targeteers. For example, representatives of three allied governments
participated this morning in an important seminar addressed by House Speaker Newt
Gingrich
(R-GA) and Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA). Sponsored by the Jerusalem-based
Institute for
Advanced Strategic and Political Studies and held in the Cannon Caucus Room, this
event
benefitted from remarks by the Japanese, Turkish and Israeli defense attachés —
Admiral Fumio
Ota, General Volkan Tiryakiler and General Zeev Livne,
respectively. Among the more
important comments from these allied officials were the following:
- Japan: Admiral Ota warned that the Taepo Dong 1 had demonstrated the
ability to deliver a
warhead at speeds up to 8 kilometers per second — speeds associated with intercontinental-range
ballistic missiles — and, therefore, can probably develop such a weapon at any time. The
Admiral noted that, if Japan’s development of a sea-based anti-missile system derived from its
U.S.-designed and -licensed AEGIS fleet air defense assets were unencumbered by the 1972
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, a single vessel could protect all of Japan. If on the other
hand,
this system’s capability had to be dumbed-down in order to adhere to treaty-imposed limits on
the velocity of interceptors (i.e., kept to speeds less than 3.5 kilometer per second), three or
four ships would be required to protect all the Home Islands. - Turkey: Gen. Tiryakiler warned about the threat posed to his country
and others in the region
by Iran’s ballistic missile program. He stressed that the Shahab-3 missile recently tested by
Iran is but a stepping stone to the development of the Shahab-4 missile. The latter system is
expected to have a range of some 2,000 kilometers — sufficient to put at risk much of the
Middle East, South Asia, the Caucasus and parts of Europe. - Israel: General Livne underscored the multiplicity of missile threats his
country is increasingly
facing — from the proven ability of Iraq to attack Israel, to Iran’s emerging capability to do so,
to the large and menacing Syrian arsenal. The last includes older Scud missiles, former Soviet
SS-21s and new Chinese M-11 missiles. All of these could be fitted with chemical and
biological warheads and may have the capability to be used with radiological and/or nuclear
weapons, as well.
Evidence of the seriousness with which the Japanese are now confronting the danger
posed by North Korean and other missiles could be found in Admiral Ota’s courageous
closing intervention. He expressed the view that the ABM Treaty was bad for
Japan and very bad for the United States, and the hope that the United States
would get out from under this treaty very soon.
The Israeli attaché expressed particular concern at the prospect that the Iraqi
missile
threat is likely to become still more serious in the event the multilateral sanctions
regime comes unraveled.
The U.S.-Israeli Parliamentary Commission
As it happens, the Institute’s symposium coincided with the inaugural activities in Washington
this
week of an extraordinary U.S. Congress/Israeli Knesset Interparliamentary Commission on
National Security. This commission — co-chaired by Sens. Jon Kyl (R-AZ)
and Joseph
Lieberman (D-CT) and Reps. Weldon and Neil Abercrombie (D-HI)
for the United States and
by MK Uzi Landau and Dan Meridor (of the Likud Party),
Ephraim Sneh (Labour) and Ran
Cohen (Meretz) for Israel — held joint hearings in the Rayburn Office Building on
Monday.
Witnesses included: the Assistant Vice Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army and the former
commander of the U.S. Patriot anti-missile system missile assets deployed to Israel during
Operation Desert Storm, Lt. General David Heebner; Capt. Paul Lombardi, a Desert Storm
veteran, who was wounded in action; and Israelis and Americans whose lives were shattered by
Saddam’s Scud missile attacks.
In the course of these hearings and during meetings held separately with members of the
Rumsfeld
Commission and other American officials (past and present), the Israeli parliamentarians made
clear their central concern: On the one hand, the timeline associated with existing and emerging
ballistic missile threats to the Jewish State (e.g., missile systems in neighboring and highly
unfriendly hands that are being augmented with respect to their numbers, accuracy, throw-weight,
etc.) is short and growing shorter. On the other hand, the timeline for effective programmatic
responses is long and, in many cases, getting longer. The gap between the two translates into
significant vulnerability for Israel.
Particularly noteworthy, given the diverse composition of the Israeli delegation (representing
the
political spectrum from the right side of Likud to Meretz, a party to the left of Labour), has been
its extraordinary cohesiveness concerning the missile threat and the need for immediate action to
deal with it. The Members of Knesset made a point of impressing upon their various
American interlocutors that the danger is sufficiently grave — and present — as to require
partisan differences in this country to be subordinated to the need to deploy effective
anti-missile defenses at the earliest possible moment.
Key Americans Are Getting It, Too
Interestingly, a model for just such a “concentration of the mind” among Americans of
varying
political perspectives took place in the course of the Rumsfeld Commission’s deliberations.
Despite significant policy and political disagreements among the Commissioners, they proved that
honorable people prepared to face up to the harsh facts about missile proliferation would come
unanimously to the conclusion that the United States could have little or no-warning of a
ballistic missile threat.(2) Their dire assessment
has subsequently been vindicated by North
Korea’s rapidly maturing missile program, a program U.S. intelligence judged could not reach its
present status, in light of Pyongyang’s impecunious condition, for years to come — if ever.
In their remarks to today’s seminar, Speaker Gingrich and Rep. Weldon issued their own calls
for
an end to partisan objections to defending America. They made clear their confidence that U.S.
technology can bring the present, reckless U.S. posture of assured vulnerability to an
end. (N.B.
In this connection, the Speaker made specific reference to the possible contribution that might be
made by the Navy’s AEGIS system — an approach for national missile defense of compelling
interest to the Japanese).(3)
Messrs. Gingrich and Weldon also underscored the impediment the ABM
Treaty currently poses
to the development, to say nothing of the deployment, of effective anti-missile
systems and urged
that this obsolete accord no longer be permitted to stand in the way. Toward this end, Speaker
Gingrich indicated that Rep. Chris Cox (R-CA),
House select committee examining U.S. technology transfers that appear to have aided the
Chinese ballistic missile program, will also be developing recommendations for dealing with the
ABM Treaty.
Finally, Rep. Weldon expressed bitter disappointment in the failure
of the leadership of the
U.S. military — notably, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Hugh Shelton
(USA) — to provide real independent and truthful advice to the Congress about the missile
threat and the need to take urgent steps to address it. Mincing no words, Mr. Weldon
made
clear his disgust at such politicization of the military and his determination to press for the truth
from those responsible for supplying the common defense.
The Bottom Line
The American elite can not afford to ignore — let alone to contemplate
retaliation against —
messengers like Rear Admiral Ota, the Israeli parliamentary delegation, the Rumsfeld
Commissioners and key legislators like Reps. Gingrich and Weldon who are courageously
providing warnings about the missile threat. The truth is that “hangings” in the form of weapons
of mass destruction-borne missile attacks are a distinct possibility; perhaps they are even at
hand
for some American citizens, troops and/or allies. It is high time our minds were concentrated and
engaged so as to take steps to alleviate, and perhaps actually effectively to remove
this appalling
danger.
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1. As the Center noted on 1 September, Dr. Daniel Fine, an
internationally renowned expert in the
economics of energy and natural resources has warned that, if credible, the mere
threat of a
nuclear missile attack against the $32 billion infrastructure at Prudhoe Bay on Alaska’s North
Slope could cost the U.S. economy $4-6 billion in just 10 days. Dr. Fine believes that — in the
absence of missile defenses — weapons like the Taepo Dong offer impoverished regimes a
valuable instrument for economic blackmail and strategic coercion. See The Center’s
Decision
Brief entitled ‘My God, the Threat is Now’ (
2. See the Center’s Decision Briefs entitled
Critical Mass #2: Senator Lott, Rumsfeld
Commission Add Fresh Impetus to Case for Beginning Deployment of Missile
Defenses (No.
98-D 133, 15 July 1998) and ‘The Most Important Thing’: Columnist Safire
Asks Why
Television Media is Largely Ignoring Rumsfeld Warning? (
3. See It’s About Time: Increase in Defense Budget
Should Be Matched By Course Corrections on
Tech Transfer, Missile Defense (No. 98-D 162, 14
September 1998), Wall Street Journal Lauds Rumsfeld Commission
Warning on Missile Threat; Reiterates Call for AEGIS Option in Response (
Validation of the AEGIS Option: Successful Test is First Step From Promising
Concept to Global Anti-Missile
Capability (No. 97-D 17, 1997).
4. Rep. Cox was the 1997 Recipient of the Center for Security
Policy’s prestigious “Keeper of
the Flame” award. This honor will be bestowed upon Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in October
1998.
5. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) has taken a similar
initiative on the Senate side. See Give the
Military a Voice — and Heed It — On Landmine Policy (
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