Select Committee on Defence Appendices to the Minutes of Evidence


APPENDIX 15

Memorandum submitted by Scientists for Labour (10 January 2003)

  This document was published by the Ministry of Defence on 9 Dec 2002, although much of its content had been foreshadowed by the Defence Secretary (Geoff Hoon) in speeches to the House of Commons, and also in a speech to the Foreign Policy Centre on 12 November 2002.

  The paper sets out the Government's strategic thinking behind Missile Defences, and seeks not only to justify US permission to upgrade the Fylingdales radar, but also suggests embarking on a programme of such defences for the UK and for Europe.

  The document invites debate, and these are the considered views of Scientists for Labour (SfL), which is an organisation open to members or supporters of the Labour Party who are interested or involved in UK science and technology (http://www.scientists-for-labour.org.uk/) SfL aims to improve the understanding both of science and of its importance, within the Labour Party and nationally. It is also involved in advising the parliamentary Labour Party on technical issues affecting other areas of government policy, and regularly lobbies government ministers on science policy issues.

The paragraph numbers referenced below (as §1) refer to the numbering of the MoD document. For obvious reasons, we focus on the scientific and technical issues that are raised.

Summary of Scientists for Labour Response

  The MoD paper suggests that a UK ballistic missile system could eventually, after many years of development, deter the threat of ballistic missile attack on the UK and Europe from "states of concern", and so enhance international stability and security. It would not impact on threats from terrorist groups, nor from major military powers. In our view, the outlook for defensive and counter-defence missile technologies is such as to render any such deterrence of "states of concern" as at best nugatory, and a UK programme would tend to degrade international security. The costs of a British system would be very high, and the benefits negative.

The Ballistic Missile threat to the UK

  We agree that whatever threat exists, it is not from ballistic missiles of other major military powers (§2); in any case, an effective shield against such mass missile attack is unrealistic (§64), and is not the purpose of the present US programme. We accept too that Fylingdales would be a specific target only in such a mass attack. Nor is it likely that non-state actors (ie terrorist groups) would favour use of ballistic missiles as delivery vehicles (§33). Rather, the MoD paper identifies potential sources of threat as being from "countries of concern" (§9), a list that includes Iraq, Iran, North Korea and Libya, and their possible motivation as an "an intent to impose their will by threat of ballistic missile attack (on the UK)" (§21). These countries do not yet have missiles of sufficient range, but could acquire them within a number of years.

  Certainly the proliferation of missile technology is a matter of concern (§16), but of course there are legitimate civil programmes, particularly satellite launchers, that share much of the technology (§17).

Ballistic Missile Defences

  §52 states (referring to recent US tests in the Pacific, and specifically to that on 14 October.) "the ability to hit the incoming missile with an interceptor has been proved." This is far from the case, for the record of the tests so far (there have been about 10, and each one costs about $100 million) is very mixed. Indeed, the most recent one, conducted on 12 December just a few days after publication of the MoD paper, was a failure but received little publicity. Hence, to state (§49) "A prototype Ground Based Interceptor has successfully intercepted, on a number of occasions, a modified Minuteman ICBM launched more than 7,500 km away" is at best a half-truth.

  Furthermore, the key technical issue is the conditions under which the test is conducted, in particular how much information is given to the tracking radars and the command and control system about the incoming missile, such as its launch time, course, size, and crucially, whether it is equipped with decoys or other penetration aids. Last May the Pentagon decided that in future to classify this key information, so the significance of the 14 October test interception is unclear. It will be remembered that the record of the Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organisation (BMDO) is not unblemished in this respect: The test denoted IFT-6 conducted on 14 July 2001 was claimed by the BMDO as a successful in-flight destruction of a mock warhead; two weeks later, it emerged that the warhead had been fitted with a radar beacon that allowed it to be tracked—a totally artificial scenario.

  The level of commitment by the current US administration (§38) to BMD was not shared by its predecessor, in part because of the technical deficiencies that we refer to here. We leave comment on the political enthusiasm that is now to be found, and also the impact of BMD on global security and stability, to colleagues with expertise in International Relations.

The role of a UK BMD system

  This Chapter (§65-70) is entitled Deterrence. §69 looks at a scenario in which a regime contemplates "the use of ballistic missiles against the UK (whether in a desperate attempt to cling to power, or to prevent allied intervention in a regional conflict) would then face not only the near certainty of an overwhelming response, but also the probability that the attack would fail altogether."

  We comment that herein lies the fundamental flaw of BMD in this context of dealing with a potential unbalanced (in more senses than one) aggressor: the asymmetry between defence and offence. For the defences to be useful, there has to be confidence that they are 100% watertight (which is admitted in §58), because the incoming missiles may well be nuclear-tipped or carrying other Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). Necessarily, it would be an untried system. On the other hand, will an irrational aggressor in extremis really care whether the majority of his dozen missiles get through to their targets, or—if the BMD system were to work well—only one or two succeed? Will he really credit the "probability that the attack would fail altogether." ?

Countermeasures

  Since the beginnings of anti-missile defences, counter-measure technologies have been developed (eg the British Chevaline project). There is a substantial literature on decoys and other penetration aids, and their likely costs and efficacy. In general, the conclusion is that the design of these countermeasures is not particularly challenging to a team that has extensive missile experience, and nor do they add hugely to the cost.

  The MoD paper (§14) conflates the two distinct issues of penetration counter-measures and warhead accuracy, and seeks to dismiss them both as "costly and technically complex" for most countries; that is true of the latter aspect, but not the former. It is the straight-forward counter-measures, not the difficult accuracy, that will be of interest to the rogue aggressor. Indeed, in §19 it is pointed out that accuracy is not a priority for these "states of concern".

Value for money

  §84 rightly states that a UK BMD system would be expensive. The US programme has a budget of $8.4 billion and rising. Even if the UK "coat-tails" on the Americans, it will still be extremely costly, and this is at a time when NATO defence budgets are under other conventional pressures.

Alternative approaches to containing the ballistic missile threat

  We welcome the commitment (§36, §37) to multilateral agreements designed to limit missile proliferation, and the establishment of an International Code of Conduct. In particular, a protocol for pre-launch notification for satellite-bearing missiles should help greatly as a confidence-building measure. As noted in §27, North Korea exports missiles and missile technology extensively, and this "export industry is primarily motivated by the need to acquire hard currency." North Korea's total exports are about $700 million pa, so that there is clearly scope—even if the political path is difficult and long—for encouraging this impoverished country to direct its technological skills and export trade at commercial satellite launching, and to forgo the export of missiles.

International issues

  We agree strongly that (§71) it is vital that "Missile defence, does not itself contribute to missile proliferation (by) other states." However, the statement (§75) that "China, . . . has been pursuing her modernisation programme for her nuclear forces for some years irrespective of these (the US NMD) proposals. " would not by any means be accepted universally. That modernisation is likely to trigger further arms build-up, including missile proliferation, in the Indian sub-continent (where the dangers of armed conflict are very great indeed) and elsewhere in Asia. We go further than "The maintenance of strategic stability is an important consideration" (§71), and argue that UK policy should be to give it the highest priority. Proliferation of missiles and of missile defence systems both degrade stability. Consequently, a UK missile defence programme would be both costly and against our best interests. Scientists for Labour, January 2003

  Eg "Countermeasures: A Technical Evaluation of the Operational Effectiveness of the Planned US National Missile Defense System", A M Sessler et al, Union of Concerned Scientists (April 2000), available at http://www.ucsusa.org/global—security/missile—defense/.


 
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