Troubled Missile Defense System Fails Key Test

On the radar: Missile defense system goes 3-10; Opportunity to engage; the Case for reshaping the U.S. arsenal; and Exploding nuclear legacy costs.

July 8, 2013 | Edited by Benjamin Loehrke and Alyssa Demus

Failed test - A Missile Defense Agency experiment involving the ground-based midcourse missile defense system failed to intercept a target missile on Friday. A target missile was launched from Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, with an interceptor launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

--”Despite the poor track record, the Pentagon plans to add 14 missile interceptors in Alaska to counter North Korea, which has issued threats since it tested an underground nuclear device and launched a small satellite. The Pentagon expects cost of the expansion to be $1 billion.”

--Headline: “Problem-plagued missile defense system fails in $214-million test” by W.J. Hennigan for The LA Times.http://lat.ms/12SKat1

Quote - The ground-based midcourse missile defense system “is something the U.S. military, and the American people, cannot depend upon,” said Philip Coyle of the Center for Arms Control in response to Friday’s failed test. Thom Shanker at The New York Times has the story. http://ow.ly/mKR6i

Background - The GMD system has two versions of kill vehicles: an older model, the CE-I, which was last tested in 2008 and the new model, the CE-II, which failed two intercept tests in 2010. Friday’s failed test involved the older CE-I kill vehicle. Pentagon plans to test the new CE-II later this year.

--Pentagon officials want to retest the CE-II before embarking on a $1 billion project to deploy 14 more interceptors, though officials have made reassuring statements about their confidence in the recently failed CE-I. The failed test last week further undercuts confidence in the multi-billion dollar system. Tom Collina at Arms Control Now has the analysis. http://bit.ly/1842c0j

Test record - “Updated Table of Ground-Based Midcourse (GMD) intercept tests” by George Lewis at Mostly Missile Defense. http://bit.ly/15r5TsV

Tweet - @nukes_of_hazard: After failure today ground based midcourse defense system 0-3 in intercept tests since '08, 3-10 since '02.

Tweet - @BennettJohnT: Despite missile defense test miss, program will roll on according to existing schedule and budget. Politically, easier to fund against scary rhetoric.

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Rouhani reset - Hassan “Rouhani’s election provides a welcome opportunity to recalibrate U.S. policy toward Iran...Rigorous, sustained diplomacy is the United States’ best hope to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon and a new war in the Middle East.”

--The U.S. should take three steps to show its serious it is about engaging Rouhani: (1) Secretary Kerry should lift the State Department’s “no contact policy;” (2) the U.S. should offer separate bilateral talks with Iran for the next round of negotiations; (3) the debate in Congress about U.S. policy toward Iran should be broadened to include diplomacy and human rights in addition to sanctions, write Reps. Keith Ellison and Jim McDermott in Politico. http://ow.ly/mKXlx

Prudent plan - Obama’s plan to reduce deployed U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear warheads to 1,000 each, recently unveiled in a speech in Berlin, “is a solid proposal, write Michael O’Hanlon and Steven Pifer. The case [for it] is compelling.” First, a posture of 1,000 weapons allows the U.S. to maintain a “robust, reliable, and even redundant nuclear deterrent.” Moreover, the need for the U.S. to maintain thousands of nuclear warheads is outmoded, and based on Cold War logic.

--Third, Russia’s shrinking population, “diminished conventional military,” and budgetary woes may lead the Kremlin to consider cuts, despite what critics may say. Cuts could save Washington money too - an estimated $2-3 billion annually. Lastly, “the idea that the world’s nuclear troubles can be linked to Obama’s pursuit of lower levels of nuclear arms and, ultimately, a nuclear-free world - a goal he shares with Ronald Reagan - does not hold water,” write O’Hanlon and Pifer at Reuters. http://ow.ly/mKPiR

Reshaping the arsenal - “Operational nuclear forces could be reduced without jeopardizing U.S. national security or that of our allies,” writes Barry Blechman in The Washington Post in response to recent articles commenting on the Obama administration’s plan to reshape the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

--Blechman points out Russia’s nuclear and conventional inferiority, warns about the costs of U.S. nuclear modernization, and suggests that the U.S. “should move unilaterally to the level of forces necessary to ensure our security with or without the other side.” Full article here. http://wapo.st/12yrDil

Tweet - @unausa: Will Obama's Brandenburg Gate speech motivate #UN partners to reduce #nuclear dangers? Read more from @una_theid. ow.ly/mKWo9

Letting go of the nukes - President Obama’s announcement that the U.S. is prepared to reduce its nuclear arsenal was met political skepticism in Congress and the Kremlin. “But politics aside, several fundamental questions about the president’s speech remain: Why have we waited this long for such a proposal? Why are we stopping there? And, perhaps most important, why doesn’t the United States simply make the reduction on its own? Why do we need to negotiate with Russia?” asks Lawrence Krauss in The New York Times. Full article here. http://nyti.ms/14DmyZp

Legacy costs - It could cost more and take longer to dispose of excess weapons-grade plutonium than it did for the Manhattan Project to produce the first two atomic bombs. Those bombs cost $24.1 billion to produce over six years, while the troubled MOX plant in South Carolina has an estimated program cost of more than $24.2 billion through 2036. Walter Pincus at The Washington Post looks at the troubled history of MOX and the exploding costs of what is required to clean up after U.S. nuclear weapons production efforts. http://wapo.st/13FPEt8

Missile accusations - Conservative opponents of nuclear reductions and arms control are pushing an accusation that Russia has a new missile - the Yars-M - that would violate Ronald Reagan’s 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), and is hence a reason not to implement planned nuclear reductions. Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists points out that the Yars-M is not new, has intercontinental range and is not a valid excuse to not implement the New START treaty. http://bit.ly/15r6if9

Speed reads -

--”The Reset That Wasn’t” by Matthew Rojansky and Nikolas Gvosdev in The New York Times. http://nyti.ms/13FxibB

--”U.N. nuclear agency and Iran may meet in August: diplomats” by Fredrik Dahl of Reuters. http://reut.rs/14XPAlw

Events:

--DOD releases its "Strategic Choices and Management Review,” week of July 8.

--"U.S.-Russia Plutonium Disposition: Adventures with MOX." Jeffrey Smith, Douglas Birch, and Frank von Hippel. July 9, 2:00-3:30 PM @ Carnegie Endowment. Details here. http://ow.ly/mL0YO

--"Institutional Roadblocks to Deterrence Stability in South Asia." Polly Nayak, and Lt. Gen. Vinay Shankar. July 11, 12:30-2:00 PM @ Stimson Center. Details here. http://ow.ly/mL1lg

--"Generation Prague: Building a Strategy of Peace.” Keynote speaker, Secretary Ernie Moniz. July 16-17. Details here. http://ow.ly/mL24r