Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases

CNS (Center for Nonproliferation Studies)
By Nikolai Sokov and Miles Pomper
March 19, 2013

A decision to cancel a controversial interceptor is unlikely to overcome the missile defense obstacles that have stalled US-Russian arms control.

The Obama administration’s March 15 decision to abandon development of a controversial missile defense interceptor that had angered Moscow had, for a moment, renewed hopes in Washington for a new round of US-Russia arms control negotiations. However, lingering Russian technical and political concerns about the nature and direction of the revised US missile defense plans mean that this optimism may be misplaced.

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel announced the decision to abandon the so-called “Block IIB” interceptor as part of an overall restructuring of the missile defense program. He cited development problems with the interceptor and the need to direct limited funds to focus specifically against the North Korean threat.

“The Fourth Phase of Missile Defense”

These interceptors, intended to protect the United States against a potential Iranian intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), were to be based in Poland and possibly Romania, and were to be deployed early in the next decade.

This fourth phase of missile defense was to replace the Bush-era plans for high-speed interceptors with radars based in the Czech Republic, a proposed deployment pattern that Russia believed was oriented more toward their missiles rather than Iranian ones. Obama’s plans for slower interceptors, more suited for Iran’s medium-range missiles, were initially welcomed by Russia.

Still, Russia had continued to express concern that Obama’s fourth phase would feature a new missile defense interceptor, the SM-3 Block IIB, which Russia said would be capable of targeting its ICBMS as well. It continued to argue that the US should agree to legal limits on the scale and locations of the planned interceptors in order to make sure the overall capability of the defense system would remain limited and not affect the Russian deterrence capability vis-à-vis the United States. The Obama administration, under pressure from Republicans in Congress determined to avoid such limits, had refused to concede to the Russian demand. At the same time, the United States insists that the interceptors do not threaten Russia.

Over the last year, Russia’s objections to the Polish deployment won technical support from US experts, including a 2012 report from the National Research Council. That report concluded that an interceptor deployed in Poland would have to be so fast to intercept a future Iranian ICBM that it could also threaten Russian missiles. Instead, the report argued for the deployment of a third missile defense site in the Eastern United States to counter the Iranian threat, along with existing North Korea-oriented sites in Alaska and California. Congress had also passed legislation calling for studying such a third US site. In his remarks, Hagel announced that, following Congress’s direction, the administration would be conducting environmental impact studies of three potential sites—two on the East Coast and one on the West Coast—but had not yet decided whether such a site was needed. …

Read on: http://cns.miis.edu/stories/130319_us_russia_missile_defense_arms_control.htm