Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States
Appendix III: Unclassified Working Papers
Dennis M. Gormley 1 : "Transfer Pathways for Cruise Missiles"
Although the Commission was established to examine the ballistic missile
threat to the United States, it is important to note that NIE 95-19
("Emerging Missile Threats to North America During the Next 15 Years")
included some consideration of alternative ways of threatening the United
States with missiles--namely, through the acquisition of land-attack cruise
missiles launched from ships. This paper focuses on such a possibility.
After a brief summary of how this threat was treated in NIE 95-19 and in
the Gates Panel's subsequent evaluation of NIE 95-19, the paper turns to a
discussions of reasons why cruise missiles might offer an attractive
alternative or complement to the acquisition of ballistic missiles for
delivery of weapons of mass destruction. The paper then sketches out the
various transfer pathways for acquiring land-attack cruise missiles and
concludes with some observations on the challenges of monitoring such
activity and a prognosis of what might occur in the years ahead. 2
NIE 95-19 and the Gates Panel
NIE 95-19 examined the worldwide proliferation of cruise missiles because
of the possibility of their being launched from forward-based ships off the
coast of the United States. It concluded that by 2005, hostile adversaries
of the United States will probably acquire land-attack cruise missiles for
regional missions. The NIE further judged that an attack by cruise missiles
launched from ships off the US coast was technically feasible, but
unlikely. 3
The Gates Panel believed that while the Intelligence Community had made a
strong case for why the United States is unlikely to face an ICBM threat
from a developing nation before 2010, it also concluded that not nearly
enough attention was being devoted to the possibility that land-attack
cruise missiles could be launched from ships within several hundred
kilometers of US territory. 4
Attractive Features of Cruise Missiles
Today, largely due to the success of export controls, acquiring ballistic
missiles is becoming more complex and costly than developing or buying
cruise missiles. Since the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) was
established in 1987, the major industrial powers rarely provide the kind of
systematic aid considered essential to complete indigenous ballistic
missile programs in the developing world. 5 Even though the MTCR applies
equally to ballistic and cruise missiles, there have been far fewer control
efforts devoted to cruise than to ballistic missiles. This is largely due
to the fact that the MTCR intentionally avoids controlling manned aircraft
and related components, which are fundamentally interchangeable with
unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) or cruise missiles.
Until recently, policymakers and analysts have been right to focus on
ballistic--rather than cruise--missile proliferation. Most aerodynamic
missiles produced since the Nazi V-1 are for attacking ships and airplanes
or for defending coastal areas. Over 70 countries, 40 of them in the
developing world, possess over 75,000 anti-ship cruise missiles, most with
ranges under 100 km. Only a dozen countries have land-attack cruise
missiles approaching the quality of the US. Tomahawk . This is primarily
because tight export controls have effectively prevented the spread of
highly accurate guidance schemes like Terrain Contour Matching (TERCOM)
systems or Digital Scene-Matching Area Correlator (DSMAC) systems.
But a stark new reality is changing the face of cruise missile
proliferation: military breakthroughs are increasingly resulting from
commercial rather than secret military research. Nowhere are the
consequences of this more evident than in the unencumbered flow of the
enabling technologies needed to develop highly accurate land-attack cruise
missiles. Chief among these new commercial technologies are cheap guidance
and navigation systems based on the US Global Positioning System (GPS),
whose use during Operation Desert Storm gave a brief glimpse of the
revolutionary changes now underway in warfare. Combined with commercially
available mission-planning tools and one-meter resolution satellite imagery
to target fixed objects, new guidance and navigation technology for cruise
missiles offers substantially more accurate delivery (by at least a factor
of ten) and costs notably less (by a half or more) than far more
complex--and export-controlled--ballistic missile guidance systems. Before
the advent of these new technologies, developing states had little
incentive to develop or acquire inaccurate land-attack cruise missiles,
particularly when the former Soviet Union was so generously dispensing
Scuds and related production wherewithal to its clients.
In addition to militarily significant accuracy in delivery, land-attack
cruise missiles offer other compelling operational advantages when compared
to existing and prospective ballistic missiles. Cruise missiles can be
placed in canisters, making them fairly easy to maintain and operate in
harsh environments. Their relatively compact size permits more flexible
launch options, more mobility for ground-launched versions, and a smaller
logistics burden, which could make them even less susceptible to
counterforce targeting than Iraqi Scuds were during Operation Desert Storm.
Moreover, cruise missiles need not be stabilized at their launch points and
can be launched from commercial ships and aircraft, as well as from ground
launchers. Perhaps most important of all, the cruise missile's aerodynamic
stability makes it an inherently easier and cheaper platform from which to
deliver and disperse chemical and biological agents. The lethal area for a
given quantity of biological agent delivered by a cruise missile can be at
least ten times greater than that delivered by a ballistic missile.
Transfer Pathways for Acquiring Land-Attack Cruise Missiles
The first pathway--indigenous development--is clearly the longest route to
a militarily significant arsenal of land-attack cruise missiles, especially
for developing countries without any supporting aircraft industry. Perhaps
the most powerful factor fostering a slow, incremental improvement in
indigenous capability is the increasing globalization of the civilian
aircraft industry, which has spread aircraft maintenance and even some
production capability to various parts of the developing world. And because
of the manned aircraft loopholes in the MTCR, it is fairly easy to acquire
critical component technologies for cruise missiles. On the other hand, no
matter how widespread the availability of key enabling technologies, what
makes indigenous manufacturing so time-consuming is developing the capacity
to integrate components into complex systems that produce repeatable
results according to demanding specifications. There is a distinct shortage
of such systems engineering talent outside the major industrial powers.
The second pathway to acquiring land-attack cruise missiles derives from
the conversion of existing anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs) or UAVs into
land-attack cruise missiles. While UAVs for reconnaissance are fairly
widespread and provide useful building blocks for land-attack systems, more
ubiquitous ASCMs, of which there is a worldwide inventory today of roughly
75,000, furnish a more likely basis for conversion. Of the world's
inventory only a portion are appropriate candidates for conversion, if
ranges greater than 300 km are desired. This is because modern ASCMs are
densely packed with electronics and software and frequently are propelled
by ramjet engines, all of which leaves little room for changing engines,
adding fuel, or rearranging avionics. More appropriate candidates are
larger and simpler ASCMs like the Russian Styx and its Chinese derivatives
in the Silkworm family. Like the Scud family of ballistic missiles, the
Silkworm family has proliferated globally and several recipients are
reportedly working on extending the range of their existing models.
To transform larger ASCMs like Silkworm would entail structural
modifications (e.g., producing simple partitions between internal
compartments and riveting simply shaped aluminum plates to increase the
missile length slightly) and the replacement of the original autopilot and
avionics with a combined satellite navigation receiver and inertial
measurement unit. The most direct route to transforming an ASCM into a much
longer-range land-attack missile (500 to 700 km) would be to use the
Chinese turbojet powered HY-4 Silkworm , which China currently offers for
export. Earlier Silkworm versions, the widely proliferated HY-1 and HY-2,
could also be converted, but their liquid-fueled engines would have to be
replaced with a suitable turbojet engine like the one in China's HY-4 ASCM.
There are other unrestricted turbojet engines available from Canadian,
European, Japanese, and US manufacturers of civilian and military aircraft.
A converted Silkworm , with a length of between 7.4 and just under 9 meters
(depending on the number of additional fuel plugs for range extension), can
readily fit inside a standard 12-meter shipping container. Thousands of
commercial container ships comprise the international fleet. US ports alone
handle over 13 million containers annually.
The third and most worrisome pathway for acquiring land-attack cruise
missiles is direct purchase from major industrial suppliers. The MTCR is
most restrictive in treating missiles carrying 500 kg payloads to ranges of
300 km or more. MTCR members are urged to make a "strong presumption to
deny" exports meeting this range/payload threshold. But most of the MTCR's
implementation experience relates to determining the range and payload of
ballistic, not cruise missiles. Determining which cruise missiles meet the
MTCR's range/payload threshold is more complex than it is for ballistic
missiles.
It is easier to change a cruise missile's range and payload to achieve
performance enhancements. Variations in cruise missile flight
profiles--particularly taking advantage of flight at higher altitudes--can
lead to substantially longer ranges than those nominally given for
low-altitude flights. What's more, from a purely engineering standpoint, it
is much easier to "scale up" the range of an existing cruise missile than
that of a ballistic missile.
Confusion over the MTCR's lack of precision in determining cruise missile
range may explain France's recent decision to offer the Apache air-launched
cruise missile to the United Arab Emirates, despite strong protest by the
United States. 6 Under development since 1989, the Apache is modular in
design and will be produced in several variants, all of which use the same
airframe. The short-range variant, which is the apparent export version,
has a nominal range of 140 km with a payload of 520 kg, which seems to
place it under the MTCR's 300-km-range/500-kg-payload threshold. But by
taking advantage of a higher flight altitude for a portion of its overall
flight, Apache's short-range variant appears readily capable of comfortably
exceeding a range of 300 km with its 520 kg payload, which would make
Apache a Category 1 missile. Range variations aside, the Apache has a
stealthy aerodynamic shape, low-observable materials, low infrared
signatures and a combination of guidance and navigational schemes designed
to achieve a high terminal accuracy and high system survivability.
France's decision to breech the MTCR's most restrictive provision is likely
to influence the behavior of other key exporting states, especially other
MTCR members and adherents. Russia has already offered a shorter-range
version of the 3,000-km-range AS-15 strategic cruise missile at the 1992
Moscow Air Show. Seeing strong export potential for cruise missiles, the
Spanish company CASA has announced its intention to build an Apache
look-alike entirely relying on commercial off-the-shelf technologies to
bring costs down substantially. Israel, with Chinese financial assistance,
is said to be transforming its Delilah UAV into a 400-km-range air-launched
cruise missile. And with Russian technical assistance, China is reportedly
developing a land-attack cruise missile for both theater and strategic
missions. Unless the MTCR's members achieve greater consensus on cruise
missile exports, the direct purchase of advanced land-attack cruise
missiles may become the major pathway for acquiring land-attack cruise
missiles.
Monitoring Challenges
Developing a ballistic missile involves discrete sequential steps that
become increasingly demanding in terms of the skill and time required for
missiles over 1,000-km range. Because testing is so critical for ballistic
missiles generally, and long-range systems especially, and so easy to
detect, NIE 95-19 concluded that the intelligence community could give
decisionmakers at least five years' warning of the deployment of a new
ICBM.
Comparable warning time would very likely not be available in monitoring
cruise missile developments. Cruise missile development programs would be
comparably easier and less detectable than developing ICBMs because there
is no need to test large rocket motors. Moreover, because the MTCR
intentionally avoids restricting manned aircraft sales and production,
developing countries could intermingle cruise missile developments with
legitimate aircraft purchases or production, making detection more
problematic.
Difficulty in its detection is not the only reason why cruise missile
development will be difficult to monitor. While ballistic missile
improvements tend to unfold sequentially over time, several levels of
cruise missile capability--including both early missile designs and
advanced missiles with stealth features--could emerge virtually
simultaneously. Indeed, if MTCR problems in restricting the sale of
advanced land-attack cruise missiles are not rectified, such systems could
appear in developing world arsenals even before indigenously produced
missiles or transformed anti-ship systems emerge within the next decade
A Prognosis
If ground rules for determining the range and payload of cruise missiles
are not agreed upon by MTCR member states, it is highly likely that direct
transfers of Category 1 missiles to non-MTCR member states will occur
within the next few years. Moreover, without tighter controls on
low-observable technologies and engines for cruise missiles, more
sophisticated systems are likely to become available to non-MTCR states
within the same timeframe. However, the range of these systems will
probably not exceed 1,000 km, making them primarily a regional threat.
As for whether or not an adversary of the United States might be motivated
to acquire a regional-range land-attack cruise missile to threaten US
territory from ships, it would appear that the Department of Defense
believes the threat sufficient to warrant some level of attention. In the
May 1997 Quadrennial Defense Review, the report notes that the Department
plans to turn some of its theater cruise missile defense program to the
problem of US territorial defense. 7
At the very least, one ought to be careful about making broad
generalizations concerning whether or not such a shipborne cruise missile
threat is or is not likely to emerge. Although it is true that many
developed and developing nations have long seen ballistic missiles as
according them significant military status because of their perceived
offensive capability and assured penetration, the success of the US
Tomahawk cruise missile in both Operation Desert Storm and Bosnia has
heightened interest in cruise missile acquisition. Moreover, the addition
of stealth to a land-attack cruise missile essentially gives it similar
characteristics of ballistic missiles that originally gave impetus to the
MTCR's creation--difficulty of defense, short-warning time, and shock
effect. Certainly, the existence of a tested and serially produced ICBM
force would furnish a much stronger deterrent than the possible existence
of a small force of shipborne cruise missiles; yet, the later force might
appeal to a state or terrorist organization motivated simply by offensive
objectives. The key point, however, is that there are likely to be
variations among nations in their motivations for seeking to acquire ICBMs
and/or shipborne cruise missiles to threaten the United States.
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1. Dennis Gormley is the Vice President and head, Defense Policy Group,
Pacific-Sierra Research Corporation (PSR). Frequently serves on U.S. DoD
advisory committees, most recently chairing a 1997 Summer Study for the
Under Secretary of Defense for Policy on Nuclear Weapons and the Revolution
in Military Affairs.
2. For a more detailed treatment of the impact of cruise missile
proliferation on US security interests, see Dennis M. Gormley, "Hedging
Against the Cruise-Missile Threat," Survival , vol. 40, no. 1, Spring 1998,
pp. 92-111.
3. Statement for the Record by Richard N. Cooper, Chairman, National
Intelligence Council, for Hearings of the House National Security
Committee, 28 February 1996.
4. For a detailed appraisal of NIE 95-19, see Foreign Missile Threats:
Analytic Soundness of Certain National Intelligence Estimates (Washington
DC: US Government Accounting Office, August 1996). On the Gates Panel's
treatment of the cruise missile threat, see "Intel Official Defends
Validity of Controversial Missile Threat Estimate," Inside Missile Defense,
vol. 2, no. 25, 11 December 1996, pp. 1, 10-14.
5. China's apparent aid to Pakistan's development of the Ghuari ballistic
missile seems to be the exception.
6. Paul Beaver, "USA angry over French decision to export Apache," Jane's
Defence Weekly, April 8, 1998.
7. William S. Cohen, Report of the Quadrennial Defense Review , May 1997,
Section VII. See http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/qdr.