On March 23, 1983, President Ronald Reagan unveiled the Strategic Defense Initiative — his plan to make the United States invulnerable to the threat of incoming nuclear missiles.
Ten years and $30 billion later, the Strategic Defense Initiative is still on the drawing boards. Now, the promise is no longer of an impermeable shield, but rather the far more modest one of protection against limited strikes. Debate continues, however, over the matter of whether even this scaled-back scheme will destabilize global balances of power and violate anti-ballistic-missile treaty provisions.1
Over and above the political and budgetary obstacles to SDI’s success, there are the technological hurdles it has yet to overcome. From time to time, these problems are mentioned in the press. A more frequent and comprehensive chronicler of SDI’s woes has been the U.S. General Accounting Office, Congress’ auditor, which, on the request of appropriate legislative committees, undertakes to answer Congress’ questions on various aspects of the programs it supports.
Birddogging SDI
A number of those requests have come from the House Government Operations subcommittee on legislation and natural security, headed by John Conyers. Last September, for example, the GAO delivered to Conyers a report reviewing the accuracy of SDIO’s claims of success in tests of so-called “kinetic kill interceptors.” The interceptors are supposed to destroy missiles by colliding with them, and the SDIO had claimed success in five of seven tests conducted from 1990 to 1992.
The GAO reviewed the test designs and compared those against test results. It found that the SDIO had “inaccurately described some results of four of the seven tests” — and at least in one case, had lied to Congress about the results.2
Last March, the GAO submitted to Conyers the results of its investigation into the claims being made by SDIO concerning the effectiveness of the so-called “Brilliant Pebbles” defense system — the proposal to enshroud the Earth with a web of orbiting weapons that would be capable of detecting and destroying long-range missiles.
The GAO found that SDIO had used computer simulations as the basis for claiming that the Brilliant Pebbles system could work. “Congress should be aware, however, of the simulations’ limitations,” the GAO warned. “The simulations are still immature and use many unproven assumptions. They do not demonstrate that Brilliant Pebbles can be built and will work.” Moreover, the GAO determined that while “the SDI program is currently being conducted in compliance with the 1972 ABM Treaty and 1974 Protocol… SDIO officials have stated that full-scale development of Brilliant Pebbles would require amendment or abrogation of the treaty.”3
Tremendous Technical Challenges
In 1991, the GAO took a broad look at the evolution of the SDI program in the years since Reagan had proposed it, focusing especially on the GPALS system proposed by President Bush in January 1991 (GPALS is the acronym for Global Protection Against Limited Strikes). In February 1992, it reported the results of that investigation to Conyers.
The cornerstone of the GPALS system is space-based interceptors, the GAO found. “To proceed with a system that uses both ground- and space-based interceptors, SDIO must overcome tremendous technical challenges. Such a system will push the cutting edge of technology. SDIO must rely on some technologies that are as yet unproven, and learn how to integrate them into a reliable system. Designing, developing, and deploying a system with these uncertainties increases the risk that the system will not provide the level of protection SDIO currently promises.”4
STARS-Gazing
Last year, Conyers asked the GAO to look into the STARS program. The GAO had not released its report by the time Environment Hawai`i went to press, but Conyers had disclosed some of its preliminary findings in a letter dated February 16, 1993, to Defense Secretary Les Aspin.
Conyers said this about the use of refurbished Polaris missiles:
“The STARS program was proposed in 1985 when the threat was thought to be a massive attack from the Soviet Union. The administration at that time was in a rush to deploy a Star Wars system, and there was a shortage of missiles that could be used as test vehicles. This is no longer the case. We do not face such a threat, we are not in a rush to deploy a system, and, thanks to the START I and START II treaties, the United States will remove hundreds of missiles from our silos and submarines.
“Some of these missiles … may be suitable for target vehicles… They could be launched from existing facilities … without the environmental concerns that have sparked widespread citizen opposition to the launches in Hawai`i.”
He questioned the ability of the STARS launchers to simulate the behavior of an actual intercontinental ballistic missile. He noted that since the START I and II treaties eliminate the threat of multiple, independently targetable re-entry vehicles, or MIRVs, “it is questionable whether we need to test against this perceived threat.” And, “if we do not, then we do not need the STARS test launcher.”
“To date, this program has cost taxpayers $210 million without any commensurate benefit. The STARS project very possibly may have been simply overtaken by events,” Conyers wrote. “It would seem wise to delay the initiation of these tests until you and the Congress have the opportunity to re-evaluate their necessity in light of changed circumstances and budgets. Each test flight may cost over $12 million, so substantial savings are possible if more cost-effective alternatives exist.”
Defense Week, an industry newsletter, carried news of the Conyers letter in its February 16 edition. It reported that Lieutenant Colonel Gus Manguso, STARS project manager, disputed the cost figures cited by Conyers and the GAO. Rather than $12 million a launch, the cost was between $5 million and $10 million.
1. For more on the drawbacks of SDI, readers may wish to consult Chasing Gravity’s Rainbow: Kwajalein and U.S. Ballistic Missile Testing, by Owen Wilkes, Megan Van Frank, and Peter Hayes (Canberra, 1991), and the monograph “Missing the Target: SDI in the 1990s,” by David C. Wright, published by the Union of Concerned Scientists (Boston, 1992).
2. See GAO report No. NSIAD-92-282, “Strategic Defense Initiative: Some Claims Overstated for Early Flight Tests of Interceptors.”
3. See GAO report No. NSIAD-92-91, “Strategic Defense Initiative: Estimates of Brilliant Pebbles’ Effectiveness Are Based on Many Unproven Assumptions.”
4. GAO Report No. IMTEC-02-18, “Strategic Defense Initiative: Changing Design and Technological Uncertainties Create Significant Risk.”
Volume 3, Number 9 March 1993
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