NMD Testing Schedule Slips, Delaying Pentagon Review

THE PENTAGON REVIEW of the proposed national missile defense (NMD) system, originally scheduled for June, will be deferred a month so that data from an intercept test delayed to June 26 can factor into a Pentagon recommendation on whether the system's development status can support a presidential deployment decision. Announced March 21, the delays further compressed an officially acknowledged "high-risk" schedule that calls for system construction contracts to be awarded this fall. President Clinton will decide on whether to deploy the system, which Russia continues to oppose, later this year.

In the last intercept attempt, which took place January 18, the anti-missile system's exoatmospheric kill vehicle (EKV) failed to hit the target warhead. After conducting an "intensive" review, the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO), which oversees U.S. missile defense programs, concluded that the "most likely cause" of the miss was moisture freezing in orifices, no wider than two human hairs, in the cooling system for the EKV's infrared sensors, which guide the EKV during the intercept's final seconds.

BMDO Director Lieutenant General Ronald Kadish said March 21 that "no major design or redesign" of the EKV would be needed before the next test. Fixing the problem, however, will take until April 9, requiring the next test—originally slated for April 27—to be postponed two months and delaying the start of the planned June deployment readiness review until July. A BMDO spokesperson speculated that the readiness review would "take two or three weeks or longer given the number of participants involved, as well as the complexity of the overall technology involved in the system."

Describing the delays as "prudent," Kadish explained that the period for reviewing the upcoming intercept test results would shrink from 60 days to 30 days as a result. While permitting only 85 percent of the analysis of the approximately $100 million test, Kadish said the shortened period would be "sufficient" for evaluating the system's operation.

Kadish also downplayed an internal Pentagon criterion that calls for two successful intercepts before a deployment recommendation is given. He said there are "about 999 other criteria that we're watching very closely" in addition to the flight-test outcomes and argued that the first successful intercept test on October 2, 1999, was enough to allow the granting of construction contracts. A February Pentagon report, however, noted that a large balloon decoy deployed with the target aided the intercept and that a successful intercept would have been "uncertain" without the decoy. (See ACT, March 2000.)

A similar decoy will be used in the upcoming test and the target warhead will carry a Global Positioning System beacon, which during previous tests has provided data used in formulating the trajectory of the interceptor prior to launch and in mid-range tracking of the target. Except for the system's planned booster, this third intercept test will integrate all NMD surrogate and prototype elements, including the In-Flight Interceptor Communications System, which will permit the EKV to receive target update data and make in-flight adjustments after separating from the booster.

BMDO confirmed in March that the first flight test of the actual NMD booster, originally scheduled for April 17, has also been delayed. A new test date has yet to be set. Three flight tests of the booster are planned before it will be integrated with the prototype EKV in a 2001 intercept test. Yet this booster will not be mated with a production-representative EKV until 2003—a point stressed last November by an independent NMD review panel headed by retired Air Force General Larry Welch. The panel questioned whether the EKV would withstand the actual booster's severe vibrations, acceleration, and shock loads, which are expected to be "over an order of magnitude greater" than the booster currently in use. (See ACT, November 1999.)

Adding to questions surrounding the program, The New York Times detailed on March 7 an ongoing lawsuit against TRW, a company that competed for the EKV contract, filed by former employee Nira Schwartz. In the suit, Schwartz alleges TRW falsely certified that its technology could successfully discriminate between decoys and warheads—a task she claims only happened 5 to 15 percent of the time during computer simulations. The Pentagon distanced itself from the story March 7 by noting that TRW lost the contract, though the TRW design is the backup for the selected EKV system and the company is involved in other NMD program activities.

Delay Counseled at Home; Russia Still Opposed

On March 3, Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE), the ranking minority member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, urged Clinton to delay his decision on NMD deployment. Speaking at Stanford University, Biden said "technical concerns alone merit delaying this decision" even if it delays deployment past the 2005 deadline. Ten other Senators, including two Republicans, have also counseled delay.

Biden underscored that "politics remains a major driver" behind deployment. The likely Republican presidential nominee, Texas Governor George W. Bush, has endorsed deployment of a missile defense as soon as possible and, if necessary, withdrawal from the 1972 ABM Treaty, which bars the United States and Russia from deploying national missile defenses.

As an alternative to withdrawing from the treaty, which would require six-months notice, the Clinton administration has actively sought negotiations with Russia to amend the ABM Treaty to permit deployment of the proposed U.S. system. Moscow, however, has resolutely opposed amending the treaty.

Having just returned from another round of meetings with Russian officials in Geneva, John Holum, senior adviser for arms control and international security, told the same March 3 Stanford audience that the "best description I can offer is that on ABM amendments we persist in interpreting the Russian 'nyet' as a contraction of 'not yet,' while they, with force and persistence, tell us we couldn't be more wrong."

For its part, the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement, according to a March 3 Interfax news agency article, which said that U.S.-proposed modification of the treaty would "devoid it of any meaning and render it impossible to reduce strategic offensive weapons." Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Ivanov warned in late February that Moscow would withdraw from START I and START II, which it has yet to ratify, if Washington withdraws from the ABM Treaty.

In addition to considering the NMD system's cost, its technological readiness, and the status of the threat, Clinton has said the system's impact on arms control would factor into his deployment decision. Holum noted that in advising the president on deployment, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright would be "very focused" on this fourth criterion, taking into consideration the impact of the system on U.S. arms control and non-proliferation objectives, as well as on relations with European and Pacific allies, Russia, and China. But Holum stressed that "no country" would have a veto over NMD deployment.

With the intercept test delay, the date for a presidential decision has become less clear. Originally expected in July, some press reports have suggested the president will make a decision as late as October. A National Security Council official simply stated the decision will come "later this year," but that all the information needed to make the decision is expected to be available this summer.