Don’t Sell the Patriot to Moscow

By Stephen D. Bryen
The Wall Street Journal, 02/26/91

The Patriot missile, an ultra-modern air defense system
that is a triumph of American technology, has intercepted
Russian-built, German-improved Scud missiles fired at Saudi
Arabia and Israel. Incredibly the U.S., along with its West
European and Japanese allies, is about to sell Patriot
technology to Moscow.

The Patriot depends upon a number of critical
technologies, including advanced radar waveguides, microwave
devices, high-speed analog to digital converters,
microprocessors, precision gimbals for the missile-seeker
system, highly miniaturized radio-frequency communications,
onboard sensors and advanced signal-processing systems. For
the past decade, sales of such advanced technologies have
been restricted to friendly countries that promised they
would not resell the high technology to third countries.

The mechanism for controlling the flow of high technology
with military applications (known as “dual-use” technology)
is an international body called Cocom, the coordinating
committee composed of the advanced industrial nations. Cocom
requires unanimous agreement to license certain technologies
for export to nations of questionable conduct.

Unless something is done to stop it, later this week Cocom
will hold a high-level meeting in Paris to officially release
an imposing number of technologies that have thus far
provided the U.S. with much of the advantage in military
technology that it holds over the Soviets — and most of the
rest of the world. Astonishingly, technology ranging from
silent bearings for submarines to high-temperature furnaces
for nuclear-weapon construction will be decontrolled, and
offered to the Soviet Union.

Among the technologies the Soviets will get is
microelectronics manufacturing capability, including the
latest equipment to build custom computer chips and
subminiature microwave devices. During the 1980s the U.S.
insisted that if the Soviets got access to Western
microelectronics manufacturing they would be able to
modernize their weapons systems, increasing their accuracy
and lethality. In turn, it was argued, the East-West balance
of power would be shaken and in regions such as the Middle
East would completely shift toward Soviet client countries.

The U.S. assessment, which was supported by Cocom, led to
a nearly total embargo on the export of microelectronics
manufacturing technology to the Soviet Union. Even non-Cocom
countries were implored to cooperate with the U.S. in halting
the flow of these sensitive materials — and nearly all,
after hearing the rationale, quietly cooperated. How, then,
can it be that the U.S. has agreed to release semiconductor
technology from export controls, especially in the framework
of a reassertion of military control in the Soviet Union and
the vivid demonstration of superior American technology in
the Gulf War?

Another vital area of U.S. concern during the 1980s was
halting the export of sensitive computers to the U.S.S.R.
that were going directly into Soviet strategic weapons
programs. At the core of the concern was the Soviet attempt
to acquire powerful VAX computers made by Digital Equipment
Corp. Soviet intelligence agencies did all they could in the
1980s and on into the 1990s to lay their hands on VAX
computers, so essential were they to the Soviet military. On
many occasions illegal transfers of these machines were
stopped by customs officials, and smugglers known as
“Techno-bandits” were sent to jail. At the coming Cocom
meeting in Paris nearly all the VAX computers will be
released from export control even as the Air Force purchases
these same computers to upgrade the strategic U.S. Air
Defense Operations Center at Cheyenne Mountain, Colo.

Along with the VAX computers will come a huge array of
mainframe computers and peripherals, including sophisticated
high-speed RISC processors. Such processors now are being
used by U.S. naval forces in the Persian Gulf to aim their
Phalanx close-in guns against incoming sea-skimmer missiles.
These same RISC processors form the heart of the control
system for America’s next-generation fighter aircraft, which
will appear only toward the end of this century.

Some very specialized equipment also is scheduled to be
taken off the control lists. One compelling example includes
a specialized sensor, called a “gravity meter,” that is a key
tool in correctly calculating missile trajectories. Such
meters can be used for improving the accuracy of Scud
missiles, or for calculating gravity fields around missile
silos. The U.S. Defense Mapping Agency uses gravity meters
similar to those that are scheduled to be removed from the
Cocom control lists.

The Cocom proposals even decontrol advanced night-vision
equipment and image-intensifier tubes, which form the
backbone of our night-fighting capability. The Iraqi army
illegally got some of this kind of Western night-vision
equipment when it was sold to them by a Dutch company in the
1980s. The Iraqis used this successfully in the Khafji
battle, giving them the element of surprise over U.S. and
Saudi forces. This cost lives on our side that could have
been spared. Had the Soviets been able to produce such
equipment, Iraq’s entire army would be equipped with
night-vision capability, instead of only some of the elite
forces used in Khafji.

Why are we willing, then, to release this technology to
the Soviet Union, knowing full well that it will flow
instantly to Soviet arms makers and thence into weapons that
will be exported to the Third World? Administration officials
say privately that they are not trying to help the Soviets
improve their arms industry. Rather, they insist, great
pressure has been brought by foreign governments and by
American companies that have insisted that the existing
export controls are “too restrictive.” Administrative
officials believe that the only way to preserve Cocom is to
go along with the demands of America’s allies. They point to
the Germans, who appear to be the main political problem
within Cocom and most want to get rid of Cocom controls as
quickly as possible.

The Bush administration’s decision to release this
technology to the Soviet Union was reached more than a year
ago — before the Gulf War started and before the public
knew, in gory detail, how the Germans supplied the Iraqis
with long-range missiles, chemical and biological weapons,
and nuclear technology or how the Germans improved the Scud
missiles so they could hit Riyadh and Tel Aviv. Unless
something is done at the 11th hour, we can expect that the
next Iraqi dictator or his like will be shooting down our
planes and sinking our ships with missiles every bit as good
as the Patriot. After all, we will have sold it to Moscow.

Mr. Bryen, president of Delta Tech, a high-tech company in
Arlington, Va., was a deputy undersecretary of defense in the
Reagan administration.