Israel strikes missile shipment

Israeli warplanes hit a convoy of advanced missiles heading out of Syria and into Lebanon, a Kuwaiti newspaper reported on Wednesday. (Read more)

Army Pushes To Upgrade THAAD

Specifically, the Army paper recommends development, procurement and investment in systems like Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, missile system.

“THAAD would provide the upper tier of a layered defense shield to protect high value strategic or tactical sites,” the paper states. The Army paper also calls for the development of a land-based anti-ship ballistic missile, directed energy capability, and additional land-based anti-ship fires capabilities such as the Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System.

The Army calls for increased fielding of THAAD Patriot and the Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS, a technology which delivers precision fires against stationary or slow-moving targets at ranges up to 300 km., the paper cites. Specifically, the paper suggests upgrading the M57 ATACMS with an active radar guidance system and in-flight communications uplink. Officials who wrote the paper support a potential adaptation of the RGM-84 Harpoon and calls for the development of boost-glide entry warheads able to deploy “to hold adversary shipping at risk all without ever striking targets inland.”

DF-15C can be equipped as bunker buster

China’s DF-15C short-range ballistic missile, equipped with a deep-penetration warhead, would be able to damage or destroy underground command facilities in Taiwan and other security partners of the United States in the Asia-Pacific region, according to The Weapon, a military magazine operated by China North Industries Group Corporation, a state-run company that manufactures military vehicles.

The Weapon reported that the DF-15C, with a warhead between 2-2.5 meters in length, has the largest warhead section compared to other missiles in the PLA’s arsenal, and can be used by the Second Artillery Corps, the PLA’s strategic missile detachment, to take out enemy command centers in a potential conflict. The Chinese missile has a range of 700 kilometers, and can be used against most targets in East Asia, including an underground hangar located at Chiashan Air Force Base in Hualian in eastern Taiwan. However, the warhead must be fitted to a DF-21 and DF-25 missile to increase its range to strike at targets such as the US base at Guam.

Raytheon to upgrade AN/TPY-2

Raytheon Company has started upgrading the AN/TPY-2 ballistic missile defense radar's signal and data processing equipment (SDPE) to enable the "brains" of the radar to more quickly and accurately discriminate threats from non-threats and enhance radar performance to protect against missile raids.

An integral element of the Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS), AN/TPY-2 is a mobile X-band radar that helps protect the U.S., warfighters and America's allies and security partners from the more than 6,300 ballistic missiles that, according to U.S. intelligence estimates, are not controlled by the U.S., NATO, China or Russia. "Raytheon is building on the AN/TPY-2's record of outstanding performance by improving the system because rogue states are constructing more ballistic missiles that have longer ranges and are increasingly more sophisticated," said Dave Gulla, vice president of Global Integrated Sensors in Raytheon's Integrated Defense Systems business. "The security of the U.S., our warfighters and our allies depends on having reliable, capable systems like the AN/TPY-2 to help counter the growing ballistic missile threat."

¿Blast door open?

Twice this year alone, Air Force officers entrusted with the launch keys to nuclear-tipped missiles have been caught leaving open a blast door that is intended to help prevent a terrorist or other intruder from entering their underground command post, Air Force officials have told The Associated Press.

Transgressions such as this are rarely revealed publicly. But officials with direct knowledge of Air Force intercontinental ballistic missile operations told the AP that such violations have happened, undetected, many more times than in the cases of the two launch crew commanders and two deputy commanders who were given administrative punishments this year.

The AP has discovered a series of problems within the ICBM force, including a failed safety inspection, the temporary sidelining of launch officers deemed unfit for duty and the abrupt firing last week of the two-star general in charge. The crews who operate the missiles are trained to follow rules without fail, including the prohibition against having the blast door open when only one crew member is awake, because the costs of a mistake are so high.

The officers, known as missileers, are custodians of keys that could launch nuclear hell. The warheads on the business ends of their missiles are capable of a nuclear yield many times that of the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945. "The only way that you can have a crew member be in 'rest status' is if that blast door is shut and there is no possibility of anyone accessing the launch control center," said Lt. Gen. James Kowalski, the commander of Air Force Global Strike Command. He is responsible for the entire force of 450 Minuteman 3 missiles, plus the Air Force's nuclear-capable bombers.

The blast door is not the first line of defense. An intruder intent on taking control of a missile command post would first face many layers of security before encountering the blast door, which — when closed — is secured by 12 hydraulically operated steel pins. ICBM fields are monitored with security cameras and patrolled regularly by armed Air Force guards. Each underground launch center, known as a capsule for its pill-like shape, monitors and operates 10 Minuteman 3 missiles. The missiles stand in reinforced concrete silos and are linked to the control center by buried communications cables. The ICBMs are split evenly among "wings" based in North Dakota, Wyoming and Montana. Each wing is divided into three squadrons, each responsible for 50 missiles.

In an extensive interview last week at his headquarters at Barksdale Air Force Base, La., Kowalski declined to say whether he was aware that ICBM launch crew members had violated the blast door rule with some frequency. It is clear that Air Force commanders do, in fact, know these violations are happening. One of the officers punished for a blast door violation in April at the 91st Missile Wing at Minot Air Force Base, N.D., admitted during questioning by superiors to having done it other times without getting caught. The other confirmed blast door violation happened in May at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Mont. In that case a person who entered the capsule to do maintenance work realized that the deputy crew commander was asleep with the door open and reported the violation to superiors. Upon questioning, the deputy crew commander initially denied the accusation but later confessed and said her crew commander had encouraged her to lie, Sheets said.

The willingness of some launch officers to leave the blast door open at times reflects a mindset far removed from the Cold War days when the U.S. lived in fear of a nuclear strike by the Soviet Union. It was that fear that provided the original rationale for placing ICBMs in reinforced underground silos and the launch control officers in buried capsules — so that in the event of an attack the officers might survive to launch a counterattack. Today the fear of such an attack has all but disappeared and, with it, the appeal of strictly following the blast door rule.

Russian Missile Forces to Field All-New Arsenal

Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces (RVSN) will be fully equipped with fifth-generation missile systems by 2021, a Defense Ministry spokesman said Wednesday.

The proportion of modern missiles in the RVSN will reach around 60 percent by 2016 and 98 percent by 2021, Col. Igor Yegorov said. In addition to the fifth-generation Yars and Topol-M missiles, new command and control centers are being built and new communications, security and other systems put in place, he said.

Russia's missile forces are being modernized in a bid to enable them to penetrate the anti-missile defense systems being fielded by NATO and the United States, Russian officials have said previously.

RS-26: Serious reasons to be concerned

Russia will test launch a controversial missile over the next several weeks that U.S. officials say is raising serious concerns. Let us see briefly why:

1. The RS-26 missile is expected to be deployed with multiple supersonic, maneuvering warheads designed to defeat U.S. missile defenses in Europe.
2. The new missile appears to violate the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, based on recent tests and Russian statements that it is designed to thwart U.S. defenses.
3. The Russians have been quoted in state-controlled press reports as saying the new missile will be used to defeat and destroy U.S. and NATO missile defenses in Europe.
4. The new missile will be equipped with three multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles, or MIRVs. What is new is that the warheads are super-high-speed vehicles capable of maneuvering from missile interceptors. The maneuvering warheads are considered advanced technology that will increase the precision targeting of the missile system.
5. The missile will be equipped with a high-performance fuel that boosts acceleration shortly after launch, a feature useful for avoiding anti-missile interceptors.
6. The RS-26 will add to Russia’s formidable and growing arsenal, which includes SS-27 and SS-29 road-mobile, solid-fuel missiles; a new submarine-launched nuclear missile called Bulava; and plans for a new silo-based ICBM.

Emerging Global Threats Demand Robust Missile Defense

The recent chemical weapons attack in Syria serves as a horrible reminder of the nature of modern warfare. The major threat to global security is now radical actors with access to weapons of mass destruction, like these chemical agents and the kind of nuclear missiles under development in North Korea and Iran. (Read more)

Turkey to sign missile agreement with China in late 2013

An agreement on building long-range missiles will be signed with China in late 2013, the Turkish Defense Industry Committee said today. The Chinese company's project which envisages manufacturing FD-2000 missiles technically leaves the Russian, American and French-Italian companies projects behind. Earlier it was reported that on September 2013 at a meeting of the Turkish Defence Industry Executive Committee it was announced that the Chinese CPMIEC company won the tender for the creation of long range missiles in Turkey. It was also reported that these missiles will be created by the Chinese company in cooperation with Turkish companies. Moreover, it is reported that the U.S. authorities informed Turkey of their concerns about the country's intentions to cooperate with China in the creation of missile defence systems. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the priority for Turkey is to create the missiles in his own country.

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.