Indefensible Policies: Our Commander-in-Chief Retreats As Putin's Missile Programs Advance Jul 14th 2013, 10:00
US President Barack Obama (R) listens to Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Image credit: AFP/Getty Images via @daylife)
There was no audible outcry from the White House or mainstream media regarding last month's Russian flight test launch of a Yars-M road-mobile missile from their Kapustin Yar cosmodome to an impact range at Sary Shagan, about 1,242 miles away. Nor has there been much press attention to the fact that Russia is completing construction of a large Armavir radar station in the Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad near the Black Sea to detect missiles launched from Europe and Iran.
Why should there be? Well maybe because the Yars-M launch violated the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty…and also perhaps because the Black Sea radar site is where Moscow originally threatened to deploy advanced Iskander short-range nuclear-capable missiles if the Bush administration went forward with plans to deploy ground-based interceptors (GBIs) in Poland and Romania, along with missile defense radars in the Czech Republic. You know…those defenses that the Obama administration is now withholding so that Moscow would play nice, and agree with its proposed mutual defense cutbacks.
Meanwhile, Armavir, one of four advanced missile defense radars built by Russia in recent years, is being rushed into service by 2020. Each can track up to 500 objects simultaneously. Three stations are already deployed near St. Petersburg and in the Irkutsk region of Siberia. All are protected by highly advanced Russian long-range S-400 air defense and anti-missile interceptors.
Poles get a poke in the eye during a bad START with Russia.
Remarkably, Obama informed our loyal NATO allies, the Poles, of his decision to renege on our commitment to provide missile defense protection for former Soviet satellite states from a belligerent Russia with a midnight phone call on September 17, 2009, the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion. He claimed at the time that he had a better plan.
Then, last March, he scuttled that "better plan" when Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced cancellation of the fourth and last phase of an Eastern Europe missile shield program capable of stopping Iranian missiles from hitting U.S. territory. This included development of a SM-3IIB interceptor, an advanced version of a missile now carried aboard our Aegis missile defense warships. Three earlier phases are targeted on missiles aimed solely at Europe.
The Eastern Europe shield plan also called for GBIs to be complemented by naval ships deployed in the Mediterranean close to the treaty organization's southern flank to deflect Iran's Shahab missiles, Tehran's version of North Korean Nodong missiles. The two countries worked together to produce the Shab-3, which can deliver a one-ton payload over a distance of 1,000 miles, and they are now developing missiles that can target Europe, the U.S. and Israel.
Now, as North Korea continues to expand its 1,000-plus missile arsenal and nuclear capability, Iran is also racing ever-closer to having its own nuclear weapons. A September 2012 report from the National Research Council noted U.S. anti-missile shortcomings to guard against an Iranian strike, recommending that an East Coast intercept site also be added.
Phase four program implementation was scuttled after Moscow threatened to target the sites and withdraw from Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) talks intended to provide for cuts in the number of nuclear warheads, intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-based ballistic missiles and heavy bombers. The Pentagon has announced that Eastern Europe missile shield deployment, if re-started, would not take place earlier than 2022.
North Korean gaming trumps NATO cards.
The Pentagon claims that the decision to delay the Eastern Europe missile shield had nothing to do with trying to assuage Russia, and everything to do with reserving more defense budget appropriations for U.S. defenses against a growing North Korean threat. Pentagon officials reportedly believe that North Korean missiles can already reach Alaska and Hawaii, and will soon be able to deliver nuclear warheads to Seattle and San Diego.
The Pyongyang regime, with its finger on the launch switch, has recently promised to attack the U.S. and turn South Korea into a "sea of fire". Is this all just bantamweight bluster? Ellen Kim, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies said: "After North Korea's successful December [orbital] launch and third nuclear test, their threats are not completely empty."
With its people starving, weapons their key income-producing export, and close relationships with Iran, those threats take on a global scale. Included are North Korea's chemical and biological weapons which pose an ever-growing danger, particularly to South Korea.
Following a successful launch to orbit, multiple short-range missile tests, a nuclear test, and the demonstration of a mobile launcher, the Pentagon now recognizes that North Korea's technical programs are advancing more rapidly than predicted. As Adm. James Winnefeld, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told reporters in the Pentagon on March 15, North Korea's KN-08ICBM has emerged as a threat "a little bit faster than we expected".
Scott Foresman Science
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