Missile defense in New York

In March, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced that in light of renewed North Korean belligerence, including long-range missile testing in violation of international sanctions, the United States will beef up its missile-defense system to protect American cities.

The Defense Intelligence Agency has confirmed it believes Pyongyang has a nuclear weapon small enough to place on a missile. The damage from a missile carrying a nuclear warhead, is unimaginable. The United States already has homeland-defense sites in Alaska and in California; these mainly defend against potential North Korean missiles, which would enter US airspace from the West. 

But what about Iran? It continues to develop its missile program and to defiantly move toward a nuclear-weapons capability even in the face of sanctions. And an Iranian long-range missile would enter US airspace from the East. The current missile-defense system provides some protection from missiles headed toward the East Coast, but the country needs another site to give our military more chances and another angle to successfully intercept a missile headed to U.S. from Iran.

New York’s Fort Drum is considered a leading contender for this prestigious responsibility. Its location in relation to where enemy missiles would be headed makes it ideal, which is why the Pentagon selected it as the new site for a data center to help track such missiles. As Sen. Schumer wrote in a letter to the White House: “Should military experts determine that a new system on the East Coast is necessary, workable and cost effective, Fort Drum and Griffiss Air Force Base are uniquely capable for the job. . . A federal investment for missile interceptors in Upstate New York could create thousands of jobs and significant revenue in local communities, just as similar missile-defense systems have in California and Alaska.”

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Congress Urges Hagel, U.S. to Block Turkey-China Anti-Missile Deal

Republican lawmakers in both chambers are urging the Obama administration to use diplomatic and military levers to pressure Turkey into abandoning its plans to purchase a long-range missile-defense system from China.

Critics of the possible deal, announced last month, are concerned it could endanger the integrity of NATO's evolving ballistic missile shield as China might seek to use the system it sells to Turkey to illicitly extract data from the alliance's inter-connected missile defense network.

Because of this fear, opponents argue Ankara should not be permitted to connect the FD-2000 antimissile system it is interested in purchasing from a Chinese company with the broader alliance missile shield. There are also doubts that the Chinese technology could be made compatible with other NATO antimissile assets. "We strongly urge you to exert all available diplomatic pressure to prevent Turkish procurement of a [China Precision Military Import and Export Corp.] missile defense system and ensure NATO will never allow such a system to be integrated into NATO's security architecture," say a group of GOP senators in a letter drafted for submission, possibly on Friday, to Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.

Turkey, as a NATO member, is participating in the alliance plan to build a ballistic-missile shield that would cover all NATO territory. While the United States is supplying most of the critical assets for the shield, other member states are expected to augment it by enhancing and inter-connecting their own domestic antimissile capabilities. Ankara maintains it has the sole right to decide which missile-defense system to buy. "It is definitely, it’s going to be national capability first and foremost, and it’s going to be a national decision," Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Levent Gumrukcu was quoted by Voice of America as saying this week. Ankara insists the FD-2000 would be fully interoperable with other NATO antimissile assets and says it has made this a requirement of any deal with the CPMIEC firm.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Monday said it was critical that all member states’ national missile defenses be inter-operable with one another. Of course, the FD-2000 "will not be inter-operable with NATO systems or collective defense capabilities." but even if the FD-2000 could be integrated with NATO assets, there are still the worries in Congress that the software would be compromised by digital back-doors created by Chinese developers interested on gaining access to alliance data. "Since Turkey is fully integrated into NATO’s missile defense network, such as the NATO Air Defense Ground Environment, we are concerned about the risk of third-country access to NATO and U.S. classified data and technology," reads the senators’ letter to Hagel and Kerry.

The Turkish government said it chose the Chinese system over other antimissile systems offered for sale by U.S., European and Russian manufacturers because at $3.4 billion it is considerably less-expensive and potentially could be co-produced with Turkey, allowing for technology transfer.

Estados Unidos: La Agencia Antimisiles continuará su hoja de ruta

 

En plena resaca tras el fracaso de las recientes pruebas del sistema antimisiles, el Director de la Agencia de Defensa Antimisiles de los Estados Unidos (U.S. Missile Defense Agency) reafirmó el pasado miercoles ante el Congreso de los Estados Unidos que seguirá llevando adelante la hoja de ruta marcada.

 

James Syring dijo a los miembros de la subcomisión de defensa que aunque durante las pruebas llevadas a cabo el pasado 5 de Julio el misil fracasó a la hora de interceptar el objetivo, se consiguieron llevar a cabo otros propósitos adicionales. Desde luego la causa del fallo sigue siendo objeto de examen, si bien ello no merma en modo alguno su compromiso con el programa ya que se trata del primer fracaso en cuatro pruebas. Según Syring, se barajan nuevas fechas de futuras pruebas entre las cuales no se descarta repetir las recientemente fallidas. A tal efecto ha pedido presupuesto para llevar a cabo dos tests de interceptación durante el año fiscal 2014 y al menos un test anual de interceptación en años posteriores.

 

A pesar de los fallos observados, Syring confía en la fiabilidad del sistema para defender a los Estados Unidos frente a un ataque mediante misiles balísticos intercontinentales. A este respecto, el Secretario de Defensa Chuck Hagel ordenó el pasado mes de Marzo un incremento en la flota operativa de interceptores terrestres, que debería llegar a la cifra de 44 para 2017 (actualmente es de 30). A tal efecto, la Agencia de Defensa Antimisiles está evaluando ya localizaciones en el territorio continental estadounidense para el despliegue de los futuros interceptores, y está evaluando igualmente la posibilidad de instalar un segundo radar móvil anti misiles balísticos AN/TPY-2 en Japón. En otro orden de cosas, James Syring afirmó que la Agencia continuará financiando la Fase 1 de la Estrategia Europea Antimisiles, en la cual ocupa un lugar preferente completar el despliegue del Aegis Ashore -el componente terrestre del Systema Antimisiles Aegis- en Rumania para 2015 y en Polonia para 2018.

Shrinking Warhead Stocks Mean Uncertain Future for Nuclear Triad

The Pentagon has vowed to preserve the famed nuclear triad despite President Barack Obama’s goal to cut strategic nuclear weapons by as much as a third, avoiding — at least for now — a heated political debate over the future of the nation’s land-, sea- and air-based delivery systems. Earlier this year, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s confirmation was dogged by a Global Zero report he co-authored that proposed eliminating the nation’s intercontinental ballistic missiles as part of bilateral negotiations with Russia. (Read more)