House of Commons - Defence

Select Committee on Defence First Report

Threats driving missile defence

15. In the days of the Strategic Defence Initiative and its early successors, US missile defence programmes were focussed on protecting the US from a mass attack by Soviet intercontinental missiles. Since the end of the Cold War, however, the evolving programmes have been taken forward in the context not so much of existing missile threats but of those that might materialise in the future; and from states of concern rather than from the Soviet Union. Missile defence programmes have therefore been driven in recent years by the pace of development in missile technology and the speed with which such technologies have been acquired by states of concern, allied to such states' development or acquisition of weapons of mass destruction that can be carried by ballistic missiles.

16. When we took evidence on missile defence in early 2002, it was against a backdrop of the US having recently given notice of its intention to break out of the confines of the ABM Treaty in order to develop Missile Defence. At that time the US government's latest (unclassified) National Intelligence Estimate, addressing Foreign Missile Developments and the Ballistic Missile Threat, through 2015, saw potential threats in many quarters. It concluded that—

... before 2015 the US will most likely face ICBM threats from North Korea and Iran, and possibly from Iraq ... One agency[16] assesses that the US is unlikely to face an ICBM threat from Iran before 2015.

Unless Moscow significantly increases funding for its strategic forces, the Russian arsenal will decline to less than 2,000 warheads by 2015—with or without arms control.

Chinese ballistic missile forces will increase several-fold by 2015, but Beijing's future ICBM force deployed primarily against the US — which will number around 75 to 100 warheads — will remain considerably smaller and less capable than the strategic missile forces of Russia and the US.

North Korea's multiple-stage Taepo Dong-2, which is capable of reaching parts of the US with a nuclear weapon-sized payload, may be ready for flight-testing.

Iran is pursuing short- and long-range missile capabilities.

Iraq, constrained by international sanctions and prohibitions, wants a long-range missile and probably retains a small, covert force of Scud-variant missiles.

Several countries could develop a mechanism to launch short- or medium-range ballistic missiles, or land-attack cruise missiles, from forward-based ships or other platforms; a few are likely to do so—more likely for cruise missiles—before 2015.

Foreign non-state actors—including terrorist, insurgent, or extremist groups that have threatened or have the ability to attack the US or its interests—have expressed an interest in chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear materials.

17. We questioned the Secretary of State and MoD officials on the UK perspective of the threats which the US programmes were intended to counter. The MoD told us at that time that the UK Government's assessment was that there was currently "no significant threat to the UK from ballistic missiles". Nevertheless, they told us, "it is a serious cause for concern that some states have developed, or are seeking to develop or acquire, ballistic missile capabilities of increasing range".[17] The MoD highlighted North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Libya and Syria as countries with an actual or potential long-range missile capability.[18] Iraq was highlighted as a concern because of its efforts to combine its weapons of mass destruction and its missile capabilities, and North Korea because of its missile proliferation policies. These threats were linked, as the MoD made clear—

North Korea has the technology needed to develop ballistic missiles of intercontinental range. A particular cause for concern is the fact that North Korea appears to be willing to sell its missiles to any country prepared to pay for them. Were a country in the Middle East or North Africa to acquire a complete long-range ballistic missile system, a capability to target the UK accurately could emerge within the next few years.[19]

18. Ten months later, the overall assessment conveyed in the MoD's recent discussion paper is essentially the same—

We assess that at present there is no immediate significant threat to the UK from ballistic missiles.[20] ... But we believe that Iraq, North Korea, Iran and Libya are working to obtain longer-range ballistic missiles with the potential ability to target the UK or our deployed forces."[21]

19. The focus of the MoD's concern, however, is currently clearly on Iraq and North Korea. The Secretary of State specifically highlighted those two countries in the Defence in the World debate earlier this month as states with little regard for the interests of their own people and thereby less susceptible to notions of deterrence that nuclear forces would otherwise instil.[22] Against the current background of a possible conflict with Iraq, last month's discussion paper highlights the danger from that particular direction—

... It is [the] combination of ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction, coupled with the intent and a demonstrated willingness to use these capabilities, that makes Iraq the most immediate state threat to global security.[23]

Iraq, it goes on, would probably not be able to produce a longer-range missile with a range of over 1000 km before 2007, and while such a missile could target British interests in Cyprus it could not be used against mainland UK. The MoD's analysis warns, however, that—

... this prognosis could ... be rapidly invalidated were Iraq to acquire missiles or technology from North Korea.[24] ... We believe that if sanctions were lifted, it would take at least five years for Iraq to produce an indigenous nuclear weapon. However, if Iraq obtained fissile material and other essential components from foreign sources Iraq could produce a nuclear weapon in between one and two years.[25]

20. The MoD's recent discussion document also highlighed the particular risk from North Korea's proliferation activities. It has provided 400 missiles to other countries over the last 15 years—mostly Scuds but also longer range No Dong technology to Iran and Pakistan.[26] North Korea, a potential source of Iraqi missile technology, is also identified as a major threat in its own right. It has under development variants of its Taepo Dong-2 missile with a range of at least 8,600 km, and if this were "developed successfully, North Korea would then have the capability to reach the UK".[27]

21. The MoD's paper reminds us of North Korea's admission in October 2002 that it had been pursuing a covert nuclear weapons programme, in breach of its international treaty commitments.[28] More recently there have been further developments, with North Korea reported to be preparing to start up its nuclear reactor at Yongbyan in a matter of weeks (ostensibly for electricity production), which is able to provide fissile material for its nuclear weapons programme. North Korea also withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty earlier this month, and has indicated that it would no longer be bound by its moratorium on testing long-range missiles.[29] As we heard from the Secretary of State and his officials on 15 January, North Korea could test its inter-continental range missiles "within weeks", although "the capabilities to deploy them will take possibly to the end of the decade."[30]

Missile Defence

US MISSILE DEFENCE PROGRAMMES

22. The proposed upgrade at Fylingdales would allow it to be used as part of the US Missile Defence programme. 'Missile Defence', as now defined by the US, has evolved over the last 20 years or so from earlier programmes such as the Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI)—President Reagan's vision in March 1983 of a defensive umbrella against thousands of Soviet ballistic missiles.

23. Although the public impression of the Strategic Defense Initiative—or 'Star Wars' as it was dubbed—was dominated by the prospect of lasers and other directed-energy weapons in space and space-based interceptors (which became known as Brilliant Pebbles), it also included ground-based interceptor missiles. The origins of the 'hit-to-kill' technology for such interceptors were laid in subsequent experiments such as the Homing Overlay Experiment in 1984, and the ERIS[31] extended range interceptor project in 1992. These showed that achieving a direct hit on a ballistic missile was challenging but possible. Most of the strands now being developed as part of today's Missile Defence programme—layered defences, boost-phase and mid-course intercept, and ground-based interceptors—were conceived and developed during the 1980s and 1990s.

24. Until the early 1990s, the aim remained to defeat large numbers of missiles, but it was also becoming clear that enormous risk and costs were involved. In 1991, following the end of the Cold War and in a new international political climate, President Bush (Snr) proposed a less extensive Global Protection against Limited Strike programme. This was intended as a global system to defend against far fewer inter-continental ballistic missiles. It would also deal with shorter range missiles, and this part of the programme later came to be known as Theatre Missile Defence. Most of the earlier SDI concepts continued but with scaled down ambitions, especially the space element. This redirection of effort followed the Gulf War of 1991, when Iraq used Scud-type missiles in combat against US forces.

25. Under the new Clinton Administration work was taken forward on two fronts—Theatre Missile Defence and National Missile Defence. The emphasis in 1993, however, was put firmly on Theatre Missile Defence, with the development of the US Army's Patriot PAC-3 and THAAD[32] programmes and the US Navy's Aegis/Standard Missile air defence system being given the lion's share of a smaller overall Missile Defence budget. Subsequent PAC-3 and THAAD development trials, from 1999, successfully demonstrated their hit-to-kill capabilities. The trials showed that in-atmosphere interception was feasible.

26. Meanwhile, by 1993, National Missile Defence was aimed at defending the USA, using ground-based interceptors, against a few missiles (numbered in the tens) from rogue states and what were referred to as "accidental launches" from Russia. Development on space lasers continued although at a relatively low funding level, along with an Air-borne Laser programme. In October 1999, National Missile Defence had its first test success with an exo-atmospheric 'kill' against a ballistic target. This was followed in 2000 by two failures, which prompted President Clinton to postpone (until after the 2000 election) a deployment decision, on the basis principally of technical immaturity, but also because of the prospect of the testing programmes breaching the ABM Treaty. The trial conditions at that stage were not fully representative, and the Union of Concerned Scientists and other opponents of National Missile Defence criticised decoy identification and other discrimination aspects of performance, which led to a security classification clampdown in 2002.

27. Two events in the summer of 1998, however, had changed the terms of the debate on National Missile Defence quite fundamentally. Donald Rumsfeld's congressionally mandated Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States reported that the intelligence community had been underestimating the ballistic missile threat from rogue states such as Iraq, Iran, North Korea and Libya. Six weeks later, North Korea unexpectedly launched a 5,000 km range Taepo-Dong 1. Though ostensibly an attempt to place a satellite in orbit, the technologies demonstrated served to lend weight to the Rumsfeld Report. With the election of George W Bush, missile defence supporters, including Donald Rumsfeld, were brought into positions of power.

28. The current Administration added political impetus to the missile defence programmes, but also broadened their architecture to allow development to continue on programmes that sought to tackle ballistic missiles at each stage of their trajectory—boost, mid-course and terminal. The aim was to follow a 'Missile Defence' programme which replaced (and dispensed with the distinction between) Theatre Missile Defence and National Missile Defence; a distinction which was largely the product of the dividing line used to define anti-ballistic missile systems under the ABM Treaty.[33] After 12 months in office the Bush Administration announced in December 2001 its intention to withdraw from the ABM Treaty. This withdrawal came into effect in June 2002. This was because the ABM Treaty severely constrained the development of anti-ballistic missiles and their supporting facilities such as radars, as well as the scale and location of their deployment and transfers to third parties. Specifically, the Treaty prohibited the US and Russia:

· "fielding systems for a defence of the territory of its country, [or] to provide the base for such a defence ..."[34]

· "...developing, testing, or deploying ABM systems or components which are sea-based, air-based, space-based, or mobile land-based"[35]. In other words, only fixed land-based systems were permitted under the ABM Treaty.

· "...deploying in the future radars for early-warning of strategic ballistic missile attack, except at locations along the periphery of [their] national territory".[36] Fylingdales was permitted, as a legacy site already in place when the Treaty was signed in 1972.

· "...deploying [ABM systems] outside [their] national territory...".[37] This might have made it difficult to field missile defence systems designed to interdict missiles in their boost-phase.

29. The Missile Defence development programme would have breached the ABM Treaty in a number of ways: it included air, mobile, sea and space based systems, for example, and it would seek to protect the whole territory of the USA. The Treaty allowed a single missile defence site with 100 interceptors to be built, plus up to 15 missile silos elsewhere for firing test missiles. The 'test bed' range in Alaska (with its seven missile silos) would not have breached the Treaty, but the envisaged construction there of what would become a component of a wider Missile Defence system, which would in due course have breached the Treaty, could itself have represented non-compliance. It was because the US government wanted to begin building work on the Alaska test site in mid-2002, and because the test programme for 2002 included the use of systems (Standard Missile-3 interceptors and Aegis tracking radars) outside the USA (which would also have been a breach of the Treaty if such radars had been used 'in ABM mode'), that the US gave its notice of withdrawal from the Treaty in December 2001.

30. With the demise of the ABM Treaty, there are now no constraints on the testing and deployment of missile defences. Mobile systems, sea-based systems and lasers can all be developed, and defences can be shared with allies. In January 2002, the Ballistic Missile Defence Organisation was transformed into the Missile Defense Agency, signalling more clearly the change of emphasis from the formerly divided National Missile Defence and Theatre Missile Defence programmes. Missile Defence now consists of a number of different sensors and defensive weapons, which can be linked together in a complex 'system of systems' by a command, control and communications framework. Ultimately, Missile Defence envisages a layered series of defences, where missiles might be tackled at their boost, mid-course or terminal phases, or at more than one phase to improve the chances of shooting them down. Its modular development means that the system's final shape will comprise those elements which seem to offer most promise as their development continues.

31. All of these technologies present demanding challenges. Mr Roper, the MoD's then Director of Strategic Technologies, described to us the pros and cons of tackling missiles at each of the three phases of their flight trajectories—

The first is the boost phase when the missile is in powered flight. It is what is often referred to as the ultimate panacea of ballistic missile defence because if you can attack it in that phase you are attacking it as a large vulnerable target, very visible, before it has deployed any counter measures, before it has deployed sub-munitions and ... before multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicles have been deployed. It has got everything going for it, but unfortunately it is extremely difficult to do.

The mid-course phase is the second phase and this is a phase when the ballistic missile has ceased its powered flight and is coasting in free flight outside the atmosphere. Most of a ballistic missile trajectory is in that phase, typically 80 per cent or so of the time in flight. So you have a lot more time to intercept in that phase ... Flight in the mid-course is inherently predictable. If you know where it is and what velocity it is doing at any one point, you can predict where it will be in any other part of that flight independent of the shape, size and weight of it. Literally, if you stand in space and throw a brick with a certain velocity it will follow the same trajectory as if you throw a feather, and that seems inherently strange because if you try and throw a feather ...

The final phase is the terminal or re-entry phase when the warhead or complete missile begins to re-enter the atmosphere and suffer decelerating forces from the atmosphere. It ceases to be predictable in what it is going to do, and if you leave it until that point to intercept it you have left yourself very little time and you have the ability then to defend only a very small area on the ground. On the other hand, if there have been counter measures deployed in all probability they will have pancaked out and you tend to have a relatively clear target.[38]

32. Under Missile Defence, a raft of development programmes are aimed at intercepting missiles in each of these phases. In the boost phase, projects include an Air-borne Laser, to be carried on board a much modified Boeing 747, and other less mature concepts including very fast rocket interceptors that might be launched from ships, aircraft or from land. Programmes to intercept missiles in their mid-course include the Ground-based Mid-course Defense System (similar to the Clinton-era National Missile Defence), which comprises Upgraded Early Warning Radars (including those at Fylingdales) and Ground-Based Interceptors in Alaska, and uses data from space-based launch warning satellites and a battle management, command, control and communications system located in Colorado Springs. It is as part of the next phase of development of this programme that Fylingdales would be upgraded. Other mid-course systems, which operate against short to medium range missiles, include THAAD (now in its development phase, and not flight tested since its earlier demonstration version in 1999), and the Sea-based Mid-course Defense System which employs an exo-atmospheric kill vehicle (known as LEAP) on modified Standard Missile ('SM3') interceptors and launched from Aegis destroyers. For terminal-phase engagement, the Patriot PAC-3 system (against relatively short range missiles) is now in low-rate production for the US Army.

33. In terms of sensors, the US are developing more powerful X-band radars. THAAD employs an X-band radar, but larger ones will ultimately be needed to undertake accurate tracking and discrimination of complex threats with decoys. One such radar is in development at Kwajelein in the Pacific as part of the US 'test bed'. Current space-based sensors for detecting the launch of all types of ballistic missile—whether Scuds or inter-continental missiles— will be replaced in due course by the Space Based Infra Red System (SBIRS) which will have in the long term a low-Earth orbit version ('SBIRS-Low') which will also help with tracking and discrimination of attacking missiles.

34. Today's Missile Defence programme is far removed in concept and practical implementation from its Strategic Defence Initiative and other predecessors. Describing it as the "Son of Star Wars" is technologically inaccurate and misrepresents fundamentally its scope and purpose. The US have indicated that it is aimed at the protection of the US, its interests throughout the world and its allies, against a potential attack from the whole range of ballistic missiles, but only in relatively small numbers that might be developed or acquired by states of concern rather than Russia or China. Initially, however, the focus is on deploying limited defences against the threat which the US sees as the most urgent—from North Korea. Subsequently, to tackle wider threats from the states of concern of the Middle-East will require both additional interceptors (in addition to those planned for Alaska) and the use of radars at Thule and Fylingdales for early target tracking.

The UK approach

35. The UK's approach to the missile threat has been one of monitoring developments and threats, and reliance on 'passive' defence measures, rather than active research and development. The MoD undertook a three year Technology Readiness and Risk Assessment Programme, completed in August 2001, to examine the generic feasibility of missile defence systems. It focussed on theatre missile defence systems, but highlighted areas of technical risk which it considered would challenge any system of missile defence. These flowed from the complexities and interdependencies of the steps that would have to be followed to engage a ballistic missile, from threat detection through to its interception.[39] In the meantime the MoD has been taking part in long-running collaborative work with the US and NATO, which has mainly been aimed at research and technology rather than the sort of development work undertaken by the US or by Germany and Italy in their collaborative 'MEADS' programme with the US. The MoD's research budget for missile defence is only £4 million a year.[40]

The Fylingdales Request

36. It is against the background of the stage of development that the US has now reached with its Missile Defence programme, which we have described above, that the US has sought to upgrade the radar site at RAF Fylingdales—one of four current radar stations in the US Ballistic Missile Early Warning System.

37. As part of that system, RAF Fylingdales has since 1963 been monitoring missiles and space debris to help pinpoint their likely point of impact. In the UK, RAF Menwith Hill has also long played an important role in that missile early warning task. The European Relay Ground Station at Menwith Hill collects data on missile launches detected by the satellites of the US 'Defence Support Programme'. The US are upgrading that constellation of satellites with a Space Based Infra Red System and a new set of satellites, whose information would also be downloaded to Menwith Hill. For the moment, the role of these facilities is for early warning rather than missile defence. As we were told in February 2002—

Fylingdales is a very sophisticated radar but the software does not currently require it to track bodies. If the Defence Support [Programme] satellites spot a ballistic missile launch, they will cue Fylingdales and other elements of [Early Warning] chain and they will look for the incoming bodies and spot them. It will evaluate the trajectory and calculate where it is going to land on the ground. That was all it was required to do.[41]

38. Fylingdale's potential utility for a system benefit for a system of missile defence for the US rests on its position forward of the North American territory that the US want to protect. As we were told last year—

in order to defend vast tracts of territory you have to launch [interceptors] early, which means you have to see [the threat missile] early. No matter how powerful a radar you place in the United States the curvature of the Earth means that you will not see it early enough, which means you need sensors in the up-threat direction to see it with the radar. You will get cueing from satellites when you see the launch but you need a radar to give you the track information. If the US wants to defend itself against, for example, threats from the Middle East, it will need a radar located in the up-threat direction ...[42]

39. The letter from the United States Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, requesting UK agreement to upgrade the facilities at RAF Fylingdales for missile defence purposes has not been published. In his written ministerial statement on 17 December, the Secretary of State for Defence announced that—

The upgrade requested would enable the system to track ballistic missiles more accurately, so that they could be engaged by interception... It is expected that the work would involve installation of new computers and software and an additional communication link.

40. When we visited Fylingdales on 13 January 2003, there seemed still to be some uncertainty as to the precise details of the US request. On 15 January Mr Nick Witney, the MoD's Director General of International Security Policy, told us that he could not be categoric about the planning and environmental implications of the request because "we do need to do some more work with the Americans, conduct some more comprehensive site surveys to see what specific work needs doing..."[43]

41. We understand that communications between governments are not normally published. We also accept that some of the technical elements of the proposed upgrade may need to be classified. Nonetheless we believe that it is incumbent on the MoD to publish as much of the detail of the request as it is able to. For example, more information could be published on the timescale for the upgrade and for its incorporation into the US missile defence system and how the system would be able to track missiles. Such additional information should also address radiation emissions and other local concerns, which we discuss below.

42. The principal elements of the US request, however, are clear enough. At present the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System is configured to identify a ballistic missile launch and to track it only to the extent required to predict where it would land. However, as we were told last year—

...In doing that, clearly, inside the guts of the [Fylingdales] radar is all the information required to give you information on tracking. In a ballistic missile defence role you do not need to know just where it is going to land; you need to be able to track it to enable an interception to take place. All that information is in the radar; it is just that the software is not ready to use it. It is a bit like if you have a PC at home and you say, "Is my PC powerful enough to draw a coloured picture?" It is. If you have only got Microsoft Word loaded, it will not do it. So primarily we understand the upgrade to be a software change, not a change to the radiative pattern of the radar, which is very powerful.[44]

43. Accordingly the MoD does not expect that anything will be required which would alter the external appearance of the radar. As the Secretary of State assured us—

There will be no change in the power output from the radar, nor indeed in the maximum length of time that it is transmitting...[45]

44. The request, however, is not simply for a technical upgrade. It is also, and perhaps more importantly, for agreement to a change to the purpose to which the information collected by the radar will be put. Hitherto, as described above, the information provided has been used only to identify missile launches and to track their paths. For missile defence purposes the information would also be used to support the capability of the interceptor missiles. This was described to us during our visit to RAF Fylingdales as a change to the mission of the base, which would therefore require some amendment of the agreement between the UK and US governments, which governs the terms of the American use of Fylingdales. This agreement is in the form of an exchange of notes between the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and the American Ambassador, dated 15 February 1960.[46]

45. A similar amendment will be needed in due course in respect of RAF Menwith Hill, whose use is governed by the NATO Status of Forces Agreement 1951 and additional confidential arrangements.[47] MoD officials told us that if at any point the US wished to use the station's Space Based Infra Red System (SBIRS) capability for missile defence purposes, they would need to request approval for that from the UK Government.[48] But the position differed from the Fylingdales case. The MoD argued that although Menwith Hill had already been upgraded to process SBIRS data, no US request had been required so far because the prospective SBIRS system is not yet part of any missile defence system—

SBIRS is important in its own right in terms of the upgraded information of early warning. It is being handled by the Americans as entirely separate from missile defence, but if we go back to [... National Missile Defence] there was certainly a suggestion that they might wish to integrate SBIRS with missile defence in some way and that, as a consequence, they might have requested the use of Menwith Hill as part of the missile defence arrangements in that context ... The Defence Support Programme satellites currently detect ballistic missile launches by looking at their infra-red signature. That cues the [Ballistic Missile Early Warning System] radars to look for them, pick them up and give the early warning. That is an early warning function. It is unrelated to missile defence at the moment. They are old; they are being replaced by something called SBIRS-High. That is a series of geostationary satellites that will look in the infra-red. A bit more sophisticated than just spotting the launch on the ground, the signature of the infra-red emissions will be used to classify the launches and again cue the BMEWS systems. That is all quite separate from missile defence. That will be of immense value if the US were developing a missile defence system, just like the Defence Support Programme satellites now could be used for missile defence ... On the SBIRS facilities at Menwith Hill—I emphasise again that SBIRS is distinct from missile defence and is being handled separately—the government have already given permission to install the relay ground station at Menwith Hill and the necessary facilities have been constructed. They are not yet operational.[49]

16 On our visit to Washington DC in February 2002 we were told that this was the State Department. Back

17 Ev 1, para 3 Back

18 Ev 1, para 4 Back

19 Ev 1, para 4 Back

20 Missile Defence: a public discussion paper, MoD, December 2002, para 9 Back

21 Ibid, para 20 Back

22 HC Deb 22 January 2003, col 330 Back

23 Missile Defence: a public discussion paper, MoD, December 2002, para 9 Back

24 Ibid, para 22 Back

25 Ibid, para 24 Back

26 Ibid, para 27 Back

27 Ibid, para 26 Back