SDI: PROGRESS AND CHALLENGES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88G01116R000700840023-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 66
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 30, 2010
• Sequence Number: 23
• Publication Date: March 17, 1986
• Content Type: REPORT

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"7- / -_1 7
NOTE FOR: DCI
28 July 86
Here is the Senate report on SDI you asked
STAT
a- 1(q- ~~
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UNCLASSIFIED
SDI: PROGRESS AND CHALLENGES
Staff Senator William Proxmire,t Senator J. Bennett Senator Lawton Chiles ett Johnston
March 17, 1986
By:
Douglas Waller
James Bruce
Douglas Cook
UNCLASSIFIED
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Since March, 1983, when the President set forth his vision of a
space-based defense, which, in his own words, would "set us free from
the prison of nuclear weapons," the United States has embarked on the
most challenging, controversial and visionary defense program in its
history. This staff study was conducted at the request of Senator
Proxmire, Senator Chiles and Senator Johnston as the Strategic Defense
Initiative nears its third anniversary. The report attempts to
provide some perspective on the progress achieved to date in SDI and
the challenges that lie ahead.
The findings of this study are:
? While some significant progress has been achieved in each of
the five major programs of the Strategic Defense Initiative, none of
it could be described as "amazing." Interviews with key SDI
scientists involved in the research revealed that there have been no
major breakthroughs which make a mid- to late-1990s deployment of
comprehensive missile defenses more feasible than it was three years
ago.
? In fact, the "schedule-driven" nature of the current research
program, which requires that a development decision be made by the
early 1990's, has aroused significant concern among scientists at the
national weapons laboratories. The concern is twofold. First,
promising long-term research will be compromised to reach an arbitrary
schedule. Second, in an effort to maintain public support for high
funding levels and an early development decision, SDI experiments will
degenerate, in the words of a senior scientist at the Livermore
National Laboratory, into "a series of sleazy stunts."
? Much of the progress that has been achieved has resulted in a
greater understanding of program difficulties, which are much more
severe than previously considered. Briefly, they are:
- The high-leverage, boost-phase defense faces
considerable difficulties with survivability, which are
greater than the obvious technical difficulties of developing
operational weapons systems. A senior SDI researcher at the
Sandia National Laboratory suggested that the technical
problem of survivability was so intractable that the solution
might well be a joint U.S.-Soviet space station to coordinate
space-based defense efforts.
- If the boost-phase defense proves more challenging
than expected, then the problems of midcourse discrimination
of Soviet warheads from decoys will be both geometrically and
qualitatively multiplied. The threat scenarios posed by the
weapons labs are ten times as great and far more complicated
than those generated by the Strategic Defense Initiative
Organization (SDIO) in the summer of 1985.
- Passive discrimination of the midcourse threat may
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have little military utility. Possible Soviet countermeasures
make passive discrimination by itself ineffective. Some
progress has been made in research of a new type of
discrimination - interactive discrimination. At this point,
however, interactive discrimination is little more than an
interesting and promising concept.
- SDIO is still assessing the findings of its Eastport
Study on Battle Management and Computing, which was sharply
critical of the planning priorities that went into the
development of SDIO's selected systems architectures. If a
dramatic shift in emphasis from systems hardware to'battle
management computing is required, current systems
architectures might be irrelevant.
- The shuttle tragedy pointed out current logistical
difficulties with the deployment of space-based payloads.
Unless fairly dramatic advances are made in U.S. space
transportation, logistics and support capabilities, it may be
impossible to begin deploying any SDI system until after the
year 2000. This raises serious questions about the current
schedules and emphases of the program.
? After three years, the SDI budget has nearly tripled. SDIO
has slowed the pace of some of its research efforts; however, this has
not been done primarily as a result of Congressional budget cuts, as
SDIO officials have claimed. Decisions to downgrade certain research
efforts seem to be driven as much by their lack of technical promise
(as was the case with chemical lasers), and by SDIO's insistence on
keeping to an unrealistic "technology-limited" research schedule.
? Public debate on the SDI has often centered on the
desirability of performing a robust research program. The authors of
this report consider that question moot. Public support for research
is broad and bipartisan. The more relevant question involves the pace
and direction of this program.
? SDI funding levels are as large as the combined services'
technology-based research and development programs. The FY1987 budget
request would more than quadruple the SDI budget in just four years.
Despite the magnitude of this request, SDIO has yet to produce a
definite set of systems architectures, which can be tested against a
generated and realistic set of threat scenarios. In fact, there
appears to have been no consensus reached on the range of threat
scenarios these deployment options might be expected to face.
UNCLASSIFIED
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V I\ V V I1 V V l 1 a L L -.
CONCLUSION
As a result of our extensive interviews and briefings conducted
during the past two months with top SDIO officials, scientists and
outside experts, this report comes to the following conclusions:
1. Congress should maintain a certain degree of skepticism over
claims of tremendous advances in SDI research. Hard questions should
be asked about what any so-called "spectacular breakthroughs" really
accomplished and how far the research was actually advanced compared
to the task at hand. So far, SDI has moved ahead by inches. We still
have miles to go.
2. A closer look should be taken at whether boost-phase intercept
can ever be made to work and whether space-based assets can ever be
made survivable. If the evidence shows that boost-phase intercept
cannot work and space-based assets cannot be made survivable, with or
without arms control, serious questions should be raised about the
feasibility of implementing the President's vision of a comprehensive
strategic defense.
3. The problem of discriminating warheads from decoys in the
midcourse phase of defense is much larger than Congress has been led
to believe. SDIO is just scratching the surface in addressing this
problem. Furthermore, it appears that there is no clear consensus on
what kind of realistic threat strategic defense would face in the
future.
4. Congress should be concerned about the priority shifts SDIO
has made in its program. They appear to indicate that, contrary to
public pronouncements, SDIO still does not have a firm idea of how a
strategic defense system might be implemented. Nevertheless, Congress
is being asked to pour billions of dollars into the program based on
assumptions that the direction of the program is clear.
5. Congress should question why SDIO is rushing to arrive at a
development decision by the early 1990's. Comprehensive ballistic
missile defenses would not become fully operational until nearly two
decades from now. Congress should be made fully aware of the serious
risks involved in making a premature decision on whether to develop
strategic defenses. Moreover, Congress should inquire as to whether
additional time for research will result in a sounder development
decision.
6. So far, Congressional debate over SDI has centered largely on
its national security implications and on whether strategic defenses
are militarily feasible. Much more scrutiny, however, must be given
to whether it is feasible to produce, deploy and maintain such a
system. It may well be that the production, transportation, support,
logistics, and administrative requirements of a strategic defense
system are as tremendous as the military and technical requirements.
7. A closer look should be taken at current and future U.S.-
Soviet arms control regimes and their relationship with SDI.
UNCLASSIFIED
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Proposals to dismantle SALT, if implemented, would only make SDI's
task more difficult. Abandoning the ABM Treaty now would only leave
the Soviet Union with an advantage for the near-term in the deployment
of hard-point defenses. The evidence indicates that further arms
control constraints on the Soviet Union are necessary in order to make
strategic defenses feasible. The question remains, however, whether
an arms control regime can be established to make strategic defenses
feasible.
8. After completing this review of the SDI research and the
defensive systems being envisioned, we are struck by myriad
uncertainties and unknowns at every turn in the program --
uncertainties and unknowns that bear directly on the effectiveness of
a comprehensive ballistic missile defense we might deploy in the
future. And much of that uncertainty will likely remain, for even
with strategic defenses in place, the U.S. would never be able to
adequately test the system under realistic conditions.
SDI supporters cite Soviet uncertainty as a rationale for
deploying SDI. The Soviets would be deterred from attacking the U.S.
because of their uncertainty over how well they could overcome U.S.
defenses. However, if the Soviets deploy their own defensive system,
which the President has invited them to do, then both they and we
would likely be uncertain about the effectiveness of both our and
their systems.
It would seem inevitable that faced with these uncertainties,
both the U.S. and U.S.S.R. would deem it necessary to maintain a
highly secure and effective antisatellite capability to ensure that at
the onset of a nuclear conflict they did not suddenly discover their
adversary's defense intact and their own defense debilitated. Thus,
both sides would have strategic defenses in place with separate ASAT
weapons poised to destroy the other's defense. This situation does
not strike us as a stable environment for the future.
Furthermore, it is disturbing that despite a tripling of its
budget the past three years, the SDIO has-been unable or unwilling to
develop any cost estimate for deployment and maintenance of a
comprehensive strategic defense system. SDIO's statement that it will
estimate what these defenses should cost is not enough. Congress
needs to know what these defenses will cost.
9. Finally, this report has examined only the progress and
challenges of SDI research. It leaves open any detailed examination
of the question of whether strategic defenses are desirable even if
some or many of the challenges can be overcome. As the point above
makes clear, Congress should, nevertheless, begin a thorough
consideration of that question.
Congress, therefore, may wish to consider four important
questions this year:
? Can strategic defenses, particularly those intercepting
ballistic missiles in the boost phase, be made survivable in
the face of a future Soviet offensive threat and
UNCLASSIFIED
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countermeasures?
? Can effective discrimination be achieved in the
midcourse phase of defense to distinguish Soviet warheads from
decoys, which, all told, may number in the millions during an
attack?
? Why is it so important to make a development decision
on the Strategic Defense Initiative by the early 1990's if
that decision will be so fraught with risks?
? What will it cost not only to deploy comprehensive
strategic defenses, but also to maintain such a system?
UNCLASSIFIED
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I. SCOPE OF THIS REPORT
At the beginning of 1986, because of your membership on the
Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, you directed us to begin an
intensive review of the Strategic Defense Initiative. In the six
months preceding this review, senior officials in the White House,
Department of Defense, and the Strategic Defense Initiative
Organization had been quoted as saying that SDI had made tremendous
progress the past two years. Adjectives such as "incredible" and
"amazing" had been used by these officials to describe research
breakthroughs SDI had been recently achieved.
The Strategic Defense Initiative has been designated a research
program to determine the feasibility of a comprehensive ballistic
missile defense system to shield both military and civilian targets.
These so-called breakthroughs have been cited as evidence that SDI is
feasible and that the unprecedented level of funding for this research
program is justified.
This study was initiated at your request to learn more about the
actual progress and changes made in SDI research, plus the challenges
and problems that lie ahead.
We began by visiting and receiving extensive briefings at the
following facilities conducting SDI research:
o U.S. Army Strategic Defense Command, Huntsville, Alabama. The Army,
along with the Air Force, execute the largest portion of the SDI
budget. USASDC conducts research into terminal defense for the SDI
system (see Figure 1) and anti-tactical ballistic missiles suitable
for a European defense. _
o U.S. Air Force Space Division, Los Angeles, California. One of five
divisions of the Air Force Space Command, the Space Division manages
that service's execution of SDI research, concentrating on the boost
phase, post-boost phase and midcourse defenses.
o Sandia National Laboratory, Albuquerque, New Mexico. Sandia is
conducting research in threat technology, SDI systems analysis,
directed energy weapons, discrimination technology, and space power.
o Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California.
Livermore is conducting research in directed energy weapons such as
the X-ray laser and free-electron laser, in threat analysis, and in
super computers.
In addition to visiting major SDI facilities, we received
briefings from SDIO Director Lt. Gen. James Abrahamson, SDIO's five
program managers, its European strategic defense specialists, the
General Accounting Office, the Defense Intelligence Agency and other
scientists and ballistic missile defense experts.
The following report is not meant to be a comprehensive
assessment of SDI research. Rather, it attempts to highlight what
appear to be some key issues related to SDI's progress and problems,
UNCLASSIFIED
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I which Congress may wish to consider this year.
H. BACKGROUND
President Reagan's March 23, 1983, speech calling for a
comprehensive scientific research effort to render nuclear weapons
"impotent and obsolete" has opened the possibility for a major change
in U.S. strategic doctrine. For three decades, the United-States has
relied on massive retaliation to deter a Soviet nuclear attack. The
standoff has become known as mutual assured destruction (MAD).
From the late 1960's to the early 1970's, the United States,
which had developed crude, nuclear armed missile interceptors from its
air defense fleet, pursued the idea of ballistic missile defenses.
The Soviet Union had also developed an interceptor missile system,
known as Galosh.
By 1972, however, evidence mounted that an effective
comprehensive ballistic missile defense system could not be deployed,
that it would be too expensive, and that it would likely launch a
dangerous offensive-defensive arms race. The Anti-Ballistic Missile
Treaty was signed that year, sharply limiting ABM development and
deployment on both sides.
Since entering into the ABM Treaty, the United States has still
continued research into ballistic missile defense technology,
concentrating on low-altitude nuclear-armed interceptors and non-
nuclear exoatmospheric interceptors that might be deployed in a few
years in response to a Soviet breakout of the ABM Treaty (see Figure
2). Some work was conducted in exotic technologies, such as lasers,
which might have long-term applications; however, this research was
scattered over a number of agencies and military services and lacked
overall focus or direction.
All told, less than one billion dollars was spent annually on
research into ballistic missile defense and related technologies in
the years immediately before the President's public announcement
launching his strategic defense research program, which has been
dubbed his "Star Wars" speech.
While the United States saw no compelling economic or military
justification for an ABM deployment as allowed for in the Treaty, the
Soviet Union went ahead with deployment of a ring of Galosh
interceptors around Moscow, which are currently being upgraded. The
Moscow ABM system, which is based on technology the U.S. had developed
at least 10 years ago, would be largely ineffective against a
concentrated U.S. attack. Nevertheless, the Moscow ABM system does
provide operational training for Soviet troops, which is not available
for their U.S. counterparts.
The Soviets also have in place an extensive air defense network
against aircraft and air-breathing cruise missiles, which some have
UNCLASSIFIED
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?' ~~ i f~' '~3iTlt ii~1~~-t N ~-iM~[;?Jt~.a`l~~t~, y yt~~ ?Y ~.r ? -:., '~ i. ~ 4~
U3 ARMY
1957
1958
1962
1963
1968
1969
1971
1972
1973
1974
1974
1976
1982
1983
1904
1985
FIRST MANAGEMENT OFFICE
NIKE-ZEUS
FIRST INTERCEPT
NIKE-X
SENTINEL
SAFEGUARD
HARDSITE DEFENSE
ABM TREATY
CONGRESS LIMITS DEPLOYMENT TO ONE SITE
PROTOCOL TO ABM TREATY
SAFEGUARD ERD
SAFEGUARD CLOSED
LOAD
SENTRY
DEFENSE IN DEPTH
HOE
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speculated could easily be converted to ABM defense. This capability,
combined with an expansion of the current ABM system around Moscow
"suggests that the U.S.S.R. may be preparing an ABM defense of its
national territory," according to the Department of Defense's 1985
edition of Soviet Military Power.
Other intelligence estimates, such as the one provided by the CIA
in unclassified testimony before the Defense Appropriations
Subcommittee on June 26, 1985, do not come to the same conclusion,
pointing to evidence suggesting that Soviet air defenses will not
likely be associated with strategic defense and that the Moscow ABM
system would not likely be expanded in the near term.
Furthermore, Soviet ABM interceptor rockets are nuclear tipped,
making them more suitable for defending hardened military targets than
cities. Military targets also would likely have priority in an
expanded Soviets' missile defense. "It will be a long time before
they (the Soviets) will do civilian defense," a Defense Intelligence
Agency briefer told us. "It's not in their cards."
The Soviets also have conducted extensive research into laser and
particle beam technology; however, U.S. intelligence analysts are
vague and not unanimous in their assessment of how much progress the
Soviets have actually made in this research and in advancing its
military utility.
Before the President's March, 1983 speech, there was general
agreement within the defense community and in the Congress that the
United States needed to conduct some level of research in ballistic
missile defenses as a hedge against a Soviet breakout or technological
surprise and to explore emerging new technologies. To this day, among
critics and supporters of the present Strategic Defense Initiative,
there is general agreement that the United States should continue
vigorous research into ballistic missile defenses.
It has also been widely acknowledged that funding for ballistic
missile research needed to be increased from its 1970's level, which
is exactly what the Administration, before the President's Star Wars
speech, had planned to do. For example, the Administration had hoped
to increase DoD's portion of strategic defense from $991 million in
FY1984 to $1.5 billion and $1.8 billion in FY1985 and FY1986
respectively for a total of about $12.1 billion over five years (see
Figure 3). Department of Energy spending for SDI-related activities
was to total $1.8 billion for that same period.
Although there has been widespread support for a vigorous R&D
program in ballistic missiles defenses for ICBM silos (to serve as a
hedge against Soviet breakout of the ABM Treaty), there were few
proponents within the military and scientific communities for a
comprehensive defensive scheme to protect both military and civilian
targets from Soviet attack. However, on March 23, 1983, President
Reagan surprised most of the scientific and defense community by
announcing that he was launching a national research effort with the
"ultimate goal of eliminating the threat posed by strategic nuclear
missiles."
UNCLASSIFIED
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Figure 3
PLANNED FUNDING FOR STRATEGIC DEFENSE
BEFORE THE PRESIDENT'S MARCH 23, 1983 SPEECH
($million)
FY84
FY85
FY86
FY87
FY88
FY89
Army
508
992
1,105
1,325
1,493
1,519
Navy
12
15
8
8
11
2
Air Force
146
195
348
440
722
929
DARPA
302
305
316
382
447
501
DNA
17
20
25
26
26
31
Total DoD
991
1,527
1,802
2,181
2,699
2,982
DoE
210
295
365
439
505
Total
1,737
2,097
2,546
3,138
3,487
Source: SDIO data.
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The President's Star Wars speech touched off an intense debate in
the defense and arms control community over the role of ballistic
missile defense in U.S. national security strategy. During the first
two years of SDI research, there have also been deep divisions within
the scientific community over the feasibility of such defenses.
In addressing the question of SDI's feasibility, three points
should be kept in mind. First, the charter of the Strategic Defense
Initiative Organization (SDIO) directs it to conduct research to
determine the feasibility of an effective ballistic missile defense.
Neither the SDIO charter nor the SDI research effort itself is aimed
at making nuclear weapons obsolete. It could not do so even if that
were its aim. To make nuclear weapons obsolete would necessitate an
absolutely perfect defense against all Soviet aircraft and cruise
missiles, as well as against ballistic missiles. As the Future
Security Strategy Study (the Hoffman Panel) noted, "pursuit of the
President's goal... will raise questions about our readiness to defend
against other threats, notably that of air attack by possible advanced
bombers and cruise missiles. An appropriate response to such
questions will require an early and comprehensive review of air
defense technologies, leading to the development of useful systems
concepts." An appropriate response also would require countering
other means of delivering nuclear weapons -- smuggled in by trawler,
sneaked across the border in a suitcase, etc.
Second, during our briefings by General Abrahamson and his
program managers, there was never any discussion of an impenetrable
defense shield against ballistic missiles that would protect all
Americans from nuclear war. Rather, the SDI program is aimed
ultimately at creating successive layers of ballistic missile
defenses, effective enough as a whole to deter the Soviets from
attacking in the first place. General Abrahamson made it quite clear
that the objective of SDI is deterrence.
President Reagan also has emphasized this point. In a press
interview last year, the President said: "I've never asked for 100
percent. That would be a fine goal, but you can have a most effective
defensive weapon even if it isn't 100 percent, because what you would
have is the knowledge that -- or that the other fellow would have the
knowledge that if they launched a first strike, that it might be such
that not enough of their missiles could get through, and in return we
could launch the retaliatory strike... If SDI is, say, 80 percent
effective, then it will make any Soviet attack folly. Even partial
success in SDI would strengthen deterrence and keep the peace."
In other words, with or without SDI, Soviet fear of our offensive
force will remain the bulwark of U.S. deterrence.
Third, the feasibility of a comprehensive ballistic missile
defense must be considered against very specific and demanding
criteria, applied not just to individual weapons technologies, but to
the system as a whole. These criteria include the system's
affordability, its survivability, and the future Soviet threat. There
is no doubt that the United States could build some type of anti-
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ballistic missile system today that would be of limited effectiveness
against a Soviet nuclear attack. However, a comprehensive strategic
defense is an entirely different question and the criteria against
which it will be measured are considerably more challenging. They are
crucial nonetheless. A comprehensive ballistic missile defense will
not prove to be feasible if they are not met.
In the fall of 1985, however, senior Administration and DoD
officials began making optimistic assessments of SDI's feasibility,
asserting that substantial progress in the program had allayed many of
the concerns that had been raised by outside critics. These comments
came shortly after the Reagan-Gorbachev summit in Geneva.
General Abrahamson, for example, was quoted in The New York Times
as saying that SDI's critics now consisted of "only a few diehards
left, sincere diehards, but only a very few, who still say this
doesn't make sense, or who ask why we should do this to begin with...
The question is no longer can we do such a thing, but when, how fast
and at what cost." Using phrases such as "incredible" and "genuine
breakthroughs," General Abrahamson claimed, according to press
reports, that recent experiments have exceeded the program's most
ambitious expectations.
Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger has been quoted as
saying SDI is "making much greater progress than we anticipated. The
barriers we saw to progress are crumbling."
Then-White House science adviser George A. Keyworth II told The
Washington Times, "There have been monumental breakthroughs that have
made us far more confident 2 1/2 years later than we projected even in
the optimistic tone that was evident in the original (SDI) speech."
Keyworth went on to claim that the U.S. will be able to demonstrate
the technical feasibility of a laser-based ABM system "if not in
Ronald Reagan's tenure, then very shortly thereafter... Whoever is
president in the early 1990's will have... sufficient information to
think seriously about deployment."
Keyworth's statement suggested even more progress in SDI research
than claimed by General Abrahamson and Secretary Weinberger. In the
past, SDIO had reported that it would be able to provide adequate
information to make a development decision by the early 1990's -- that
is, a decision on SDI's feasibility and on whether to begin
development of the weapons. A deployment decision would come later.
Keyworth, however, seemed to indicate that SDI research had progressed
so rapidly, the development decision might be made before the end of
President Reagan's term and the deployment decision might be made in
the early 1990's.
In addition to numerous public statements, SDI officials released
results of recent experiments (along with photos and film), to
demonstrate that substantial progress had been made in the research.
These releases, for example, included videotapes of a chemical laser
shooting through the skin of a stationary mockup of a Titan booster
and what was reported to be a railgun destroying a missile airframe
under simulated flight loading conditions.
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III. SDI BUDGET TRENDS
Following the President's March, 1983 speech, the Defensive
Technology Study Team (the Fletcher Panel) was established to define a
long-term research and development program aimed at eliminating the
threat posed by ballistic missiles.
In January, 1984, Secretary Weinberger established a research
program based on the Fletcher study -- the Strategic Defense
Initiative. Furthermore, the Fletcher study laid out a general
blueprint for a "technology-limited" research program, which largely
became the basis for SDI's budget submissions for FY1985 and FY1986.
Strictly defined, a technology-limited program is limited only by
technological progress. The Fletcher study recommended that all
aspects of SDI research proceed at a pace as fast as the technology
would allow, so a future Administration and Congress could make a
decision by the early 1990's as to whether strategic defenses are
feasible and should be developed. On the other hand, a funding-
limited program is limited by the funds appropriated. As such,
priorities have to be set on the pacing of individual aspects of the
research.
SDI requested $1.78 billion for FY1985 and $3.72 billion for
FY1986. For FY1987, SDI has requested $4.8 billion, which would make
it the largest major weapons program in the entire DoD budget. SDI
also has projected a total cost for the research phase of about $33
billion between FY1985 and FY1990, more than double the predicted
funding before the President's March, 1983 speech. (This figure does
not include the hundreds of millions of dollars funded in the
Department of Energy for strategic defense-related research. See
Figure 4 for a description of SDI and DoE's funding.)
SDI will be the largest military research program the Department
of Defense has ever undertaken. The research alone will be in excess
of the full deployment costs of many major weapons systems. Moreover,
at its current level of funding SDI is as expensive as the total
technical base efforts of all the armed services.
SDI officials have avoided placing a price tag on deploying a
comprehensive defensive shield. Outside experts, such as former
defense secretary James Schlesinger, have predicted that a full
development and deployment of strategic defense would cost as much as
$1 trillion.
SDI officials, insisting that the $1 trillion estimate is too
high, say it is too early in the research for accurate forecasts of
deployment costs. Rather than give an estimate of SDI's total cost
based on current information, General Abrahamson said he is working to
develop what SDI should cost if it is to be affordable and meet the
cost-effective-at-the-margin criteria, as posed by Ambassador Paul
Nitze. Within a year, the SDI organization hopes to begin
establishing "cost objectives" for its weapons -- for example, $1
million for a ground-based intercepter, according to Abrahamson.
UNCLASSIFIED
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Figure 4
STRATEGIC DEFENSE FUNDING
($million)
Strategic Defense Initiative Organization
Program
Surveillance,
Acquisition, Tracking
& Kill Assessment
Directed Energy
Weapons
Kinetic Energy
Weapons
Systems Concepts &
Battle Management
Survivability,
Lethality & Key
Support Technology
Management HQ, SDI
Strategic Defense-
Related Programs
FY1985 FY1986 FY1987 FY1988
545.950 856.956 1,262.413 1,558.279
377.599 844.401 1,614.955 1,582.037
255.950 595.802 991.214 1,217.226
100.280 227.339 462.206 563.998
108.400 221.602 454.367 523.654
9.120 13.122 17.411 18.118
1,397.299 2,759.222 4,802.566 5,463.312
Department of Energy
FY1985 FY1986 FY1987
224 288 603
UNCLASSIFIED
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UNLLA551I- 1ED +
Nevertheless, SDI officials appear to be privately making
preliminary estimates of deployment costs based on information
accumulated so far. For example, one official projected that a
particular defensive architecture (the configuration of weapons in a
defensive shield) would cost $350 billion to deploy.
Whatever the final cost, it is clear that the present SDI program
is not being funded at the pace the Administration had originally
envisioned. As noted above, SDIO has submitted what it considered a
technology-limited budget to Congress the past two years. Congress,
however, has approved a more funding-limited approach.
In FY1985, the Administration requested $1.78 billion for SDI,
but Congress appropriated $1.4 billion. For FY1986, SDIO requested
$3.7 billion, but received $2.76. Figures 5 and 6 shows where the
major reductions were achieved for FY1986.
Actually, it is not accurate to argue that Congress has ever cut
SDIO's budget. In fact, Congress allowed SDIO's budget to increase by
41 percent for FY1985 and 92 percent for FY1986. Reductions have
occurred only in the sense that the Congress refused to make the
increases as large as the Administration requested. In fact, Congress
has allowed almost a tripling of the SDI budget since 1984.
It is also interesting to note that, according to SDI documents,
a majority of the cuts were taken in demonstration projects, which
some critics of the program have worried are moving too far ahead of
other, more important research efforts. However, two even more
important trends appear as result of recent funding shifts in the SDI
program.
First, the Fletcher budget is not the budget SDI now has, yet SDI
is still clinging to the Fletcher Panel's timeline.
As noted above, the Fletcher Panel proposed a technology-limited
program, in which every research project was funded as heavily as it
could be carried forward, so a decision on whether to develop
strategic defenses could be made in the early 1990's. It is not clear
whether even with a technology-limited budget and unlimited funding,
SDIO could have made a sound development decision by that date.
However, in the absence of unlimited funding, SDIO's managers faced
two choices.
They could continue to carry every research project forward,
which, under a funding-limited program, would mean that the early
1990's development decision might be pushed to a later date. Or they
could set priorities in the program -- that is, slow down some
projects, speed up others -- in order to attempt to reach a
development decision by the early 1990's.
SDIO has chosen the second option. It is making choices
between competing research projects and yet it is keeping to the same
timeline of reaching a development decision in the early 1990's. SDI
officials, however, candidly admit that there will now be
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significantly more risks associated with that development decision as
a result of not all the technologies coming on line by that time.
General Abrahamson, for example, spoke of the "risks" incurred as the
timeline for experiments slips and as "early" technical decisions are
made. The implications of this strategy and its risks will be
considered later in this report.
The second trend now evident is that SDI's research priorities
are substantially different from the ones proposed by the Fletcher
Panel and from the ones made when the FY1986 budget request was
submitted early last year.
SDIO officials claim that Congressional budget cuts were to blame
for the shifts in priorities. Indeed, a few of the shifts were
prompted by budgets cents. However, it is clear that some cuts were
prompted by a realization that some of the research projects would not
prove militarily useful. SDIO has discovered that many of the
research projects the Fletcher Panel gave high priority based on the
body of knowledge available at the time, did not in fact merit such
priority.
Again, it is interesting to note that these were many of the same
projects, which critics had contended were overfunded. The priority
shifts will be addressed further in this report. (See Figure 7 for
instances where actual funding has been increased for research
projects above the President's FY1986 budget request.)
IV. PROGRESS BEING MADE IN SDI RESEARCH
We believe that the SDI organization is justified in claiming
that progress has been made the past two years in its research. One
should not expect otherwise, considering the large increase in funding
for the research. Clearly, in a very short time, the Department of
Defense has organized a vigorous, centrally directed program that is
conducting research at a quickened pace.
Furthermore, this research is focused on reaching a conclusive
decision by the early 1990's. Statements from SDI officials that,
"This is just a research program at this stage," are not entirely
accurate. SDI is not a research program by the traditional notion of
one that simply explores new technologies. It is a program aimed at
reaching an early decision on what kind of defensive system the U.S.
could develop in the early 1990's and then deploy. The research,
therefore, is being driven not necessarily for exploration's sake but
rather by that schedule.
The merits of schedule-driven research to arrive at an early
decision will be discussed further. For the moment, it should be
noted that progress has been made in SDI research by the very fact
that its projects have been consolidated under one organization.
Before SDI, each military service had its own missile defense
research program. In addition, various DoD agencies pursued research
UNCLASSIFIED
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 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/12/01 : CIA-RDP88GO1116R000700840023-8 .
into individual aspects of BMD. As a result U.S. BMD research has
lacked a centralized approach.
By bringing together 25 BMD-related programs from the Army, Air
Force, Navy, Defense Nuclear Agency, and Defense Advanced Research
Projects, SDI has give strategic defense research much more direction
and control. While this study uncovered complaints from the executing
agencies about SDI's management, it is generally conceded that the BMD
research has more potential for success by having one organization
supervising it.
The facilities visits and briefings conducted for this report
revealed that numerous research projects under SDI have demonstrated
significant progress during the past two years. There is a high
degree of professionalism, enthusiasm and expertise among the
scientists and military planners working in the national laboratories
and military facilities. There is also a healthy amount of skepticism
among these researchers. Hard questions are being asked of SDI and
the research teams are working intensely to find the answers.
For example, Livermore Laboratory is making progress in its
research on a free electron laser. Although Livermore faces
significant hurdles in developing technologies for a battle laser,
this research is moving in the direction of developing shortwave-
length lasers with some military capability. Livermore's work on X-
ray lasers has also shown progress, despite considerable scientific
debate over what strategic defense mission such a weapon might
perform.
Recognizing that passive sensors will have difficulty
discriminating warheads from decoys, Sandia Laboratory's research into
the concept of interactive discrimination appears promising. Indeed,
it may turn out that particle beam or laser technology will be more
valuable as discriminators rather than weapons. Sandia also is making
significant progress in defining potential Soviet countermeasures and
the survivability requirements for a U.S. defensive system.
In other instances, according to General Abrahamson, SDI
researchers have identified areas where the technical requirements for
the particular system will not be as stressing as once thought. For
example, the original requirement placed on the Boost Surveillance and
Tracking System was to track Soviet missiles as they are launched.
SDI has now downgraded that requirement so BSTS only has to act as a
sophisticated "bell-ringer" to let the system know an attack is under
way. The difficult task of boost-phase surveillance and tracking has
been largely handed over to the Space Surveillance and Tracking System
(SSTS).
The SDI organization also has made progress in identifying both
research that they believe will not likely have much military utility
and the research that is more critical to the success of a strategic
defense system. SDI briefers avoid straightforward statements that
certain research is being de-emphasized because it lacks military
utility. Nevertheless, it is clear SDI now believes that certain
research projects, such as space-based chemical lasers or
UNCLASSIFIED
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UM-LA-bb irIt1)
hypervelocity launchers, are lesser candidates at the moment. SDI
officials also recognize that progress in certain research, such as
survivability of space-based assets and midcourse discrimination, is
critical to an effective defense (although publicly SDI directors
hedge as to how critical they are).
Finally, it appears that a number of small projects among the
1,000-2,000 contracts SDI has let so far have yielded results. From
tj.ny gyroscopes to computer chip technology, a number of ideas and
innovative technologies have surfaced from universities and small
businesses as a result of SDI.
Success, however, in one small project - or hundreds of
projects, for that matter - does not necessarily make for a
successful strategic defense program. The task at hand and the
hurdles it faces are so exacting that the sum of research cannot be
judged solely by its parts.
Any meaningful assessment of SDI research, therefore, has to be
made of the program in its entirety. In other words, the bottom-line
question is: Overall, what kind of progress has SDI made in its
research? What do all the individual research projects and
initiatives add up to?
Has SDI made amazing progress, as senior Administration officials
have recently claimed? Have there been tremendous breakthroughs? Has
SDI research advanced so dramatically that the question of strategic
defense's technical feasibility is already settled?
After interviewing more than 40 scientists, engineers, defense
experts and military officials deeply involved in SDI's research, the
authors of this study have concluded that the simple answer to the
questions above is: no. Granted, each person interviewed for this
study spoke from his own perspective. The authors took into account
that many of the briefers specialized in only parts of SDI research
and therefore could not speak for the entire program. Nevertheless,
taken together their assessments lead us to the conclusion that SDI
research has not progressed nearly as rapidly as has been portrayed by
senior Administration and SDI officials.
Contrary to press reports, there have been no incredible
breakthroughs in SDI research the past six months. There has been
progress, to be sure. But key SDI scientists interviewed for this
study agreed that their results were not as spectacular as has been
portrayed to the media. If anything, these working scientists
resented the fact that the progress their research has achieved has
been inflated, because it undermines their credibility as scientists.
As one researcher said, the hyping of the progress "is driving good
people out of the program."
There have not been amazing leaps in the technology development.
Contrary to claims by Administration officials and SDI's top
leadership, the program's scientists and military planners across the
country have not concluded that SDI is militarily and economically
feasible. They presently have little idea whether it is. The fact
UNCLASSIFIED
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is, they are still assembling the research to ask and answer the right
questions.
If anything, the dramatic progress SDI has achieved during the
past two years has been in identifying the operational problems a
strategic defense system would face.
The research being accumulated by SDI clearly indicates that the
technological hurdles are much greater, the possible Soviet offensive
threat and countermeasures would be much more formidable, and the
logistical and battle management difficulties are much more complex
than originally envisioned. (Figures 8 and 9, for example, summarize
some of the hurdles as some scientists at the Sandia Laboratory
presently see them.)
What follows is an assessment of two major emerging problems for
SDI, which its researchers are just beginning to understand.
V. TWO MAJOR EMERGING PROBLEMS
A. Making The Boost-Phase Effective
SDI's leadership believes that destroying Soviet missiles in
their boost phase -- that is, during the first few minutes after
launch while the boost rocket is still firing and is easy to detect
from space and before the missile dispenses its bus of warheads -- is
the most important opportunity for thinning out the Soviet offensive
force. Because of the short attack times involved and the launch
locations, a boost-phase defense means having space-based platforms
firing rockets, projectiles, or directed energy weapons at the rising
booster rockets or relaying a laser beam fired from the ground.
General Abrahamson made it clear in his briefing that the boost-
phase intercept simply has to work. While not impossible to achieve,
a strategic defense without the boost-phase would make the entire
defense much more costly and complicated. "We need the boost phase,"
Abrahamson emphasized. The briefing charts he and his program
managers presented stated over and over again, for example, that,
"Performance of the boost phase intercept tier is critical," or "Low-
leakage, boost-phase intercept is essential."
Furthermore, it appears that President Reagan, in conceiving his
proposal for a strategic defense, recognized the need for a boost
phase defense. In a press interview, the President noted that in
formulating his proposal one of the first questions he posed to the
Joint Chiefs of Staff was whether "it would be worthwhile to see if we
could not develop a weapon that could perhaps take out, as they left
their silos, those nuclear missiles. And the Joint Chiefs said that
such an idea, they believed, was worth researching."
From its inception SDI has been primarily billed by the President
as a nonnuclear defense of populations, which would make nuclear
weapons impotent and obsolete. Some argue that this would require the
UNCLASSIFIED
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Figure 8
UNCLASSIFIED
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 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/12/01 : CIA-RDP88G01116R000700840023-8
deployment of a leak-proof shield. SDI's supporters, as previously
noted, respond that an effective defense generally defined in the 80
percent or higher range would provide the United States with the
technological leverage to deter a Soviet missile attack and to move
the U.S.S.R. away from further development of what the President has
referred to as the "fast movers" - the intercontinental ballistic
missiles (ICBMs).
On its face, the argument for technological leverage has some
appeal. However, such technological leverage still requires the
deployment of a layered defense at least 80 percent effective. (The
requirement could be and probably is much higher.)
To achieve that kind of capability and leverage, it appears
critical that the boost-phase defense layer must work. It is in those
first few minutes of missile flight before the buses dispense their
warheads that the strategic defense can exercise its greatest control.
Once the warheads have been dispensed, the problems of strategic
defense increase geometrically and the advantage gradually shifts to
the offense.
There appears, however, to be some disagreement developing over
the importance of the boost-phase and this disagreement may well prove
central to the debate over the future feasibility of SDI.
One of the systems architecture designs SDIO has been presented
envisions no space-based, boost-phase intercept at all. Instead,
ground-based, pop-up interceptors and directed energy weapons would
attack during the post-boost and midcourse phases (they could not be
popped up quickly enough to attack during the boost-phase). Some SDI
scientists feel that if a space-based, boost-phase intercept system
cannot be deployed, it does not necessarily mean the strategic defense
will not work. They believe that a strategic defense might be
successful if it operated only in the midcourse and terminal phases.
(Figures 10-13 depict boost-phase, midcourse and ground-based defense
schemes).
There is one very significant problem, however, with an
affordable, nonnuclear strategic defense that just relies on the
midcourse and terminal layers. That problem -- one of the very "long
poles" in the SDI tent - is the discrimination of a proliferated
Soviet offensive threat during the midcourse phase.
1. Discrimination
With the successful demonstration of the 1984 Homing Overlay
Experiment, in which a ground-based missile intercepted a reentry
vehicle in space, the Army demonstrated that "a bullet could hit a
bullet." However, that accomplishment, as significant as it was,
pales in comparison with the tremendous problem of the bullet finding
the real bullet.
That problem is called discrimination and target acquisition --
distinguishing the Soviet warheads from the decoys - and in the
midcourse phase of defense it is the critical technological hurdle SDI
UNCLASSIFIED
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officials believe they face. Of course, strategic defense planners
could simply not worry about discrimination in the midcourse and shoot
at everything in the threat cloud. This option, however, does not
appear promising at the moment, particularly in the face of a huge
threat cloud of warheads and decoys. Therefore, SDI officials have
said they will have to look toward discrimination in this phase of the
defense.
The midcourse discrimination hurdle has two aspects, according to
one Sandia scientist: numbers and There may be too many
warheads and decoys, and the warheads may be indistinguishable from
decoys.
a. Proliferated Threat
First, consider the numbers. During the past two years, every
new SDI assessment of Soviet capability to place warheads and decoys
in space appears to be different from the previous one in the
following respect: The latest assessment invariably deems the Soviets
substantially more capable than the previous assessment.
For example, in the early days of SDI, its researchers claimed
the Soviets would only be capable of producing a threat cloud of tens
of thousands of warheads and decoys. SDI officials also insisted that
development of fast-burn boosters to stress boost-phase defenses would
degrade the Soviet capability to increase its threat cloud.
In FY1985, that assessment changed somewhat. Sandia scientists
reported that fast-burn boosters would not necessarily degrade the
weight that could be lifted into space. Furthermore, SDI s systems
researchers began projecting that the Soviets might be capable of
placing in space a threat cloud numbering
and decoys.
The briefings received for this study, however, revealed an even
more ominous picture of Soviet capability to stress midcourse
discrimination.
Furthermore, Livermore's scientists
have concluded that fast-burn boosters would not necessarily degrade
Soviet capability to put warheads and decoys in space; as a 'matter of
fact, Soviet fast-burn boosters might even be able to dispense several
mini-buses of warheads (instead of a single bus, as is now done),
which would further complicate the post-boost-phase defense.
UNCLASSIFIED
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The first step in discrimination is assembling data on the actual
Soviet RVs and using that information as benchmarks for detecting
decoys. Decoys obviously would have different physical
characteristics than warheads. But in order to tell the differences
between a speeding decoy and a speeding warhead one first has to know
what the speeding warhead looks like. At this point, however, the
U.S. is only beginning to collect the midcourse discrimination
information it needs on the Soviet warheads themselves, because there
are so many varieties. Keep in mind, what the U.S. sees today in
Soviet RV test flights, might be different from what it sees in war
(see Figure 14 for the Soviet view of deceptive test data).
Meanwhile, the Soviets are presumed to have a better data base on U.S.
warheads because ours are more similar to each other.
Because of the types of decoys the Soviets might use to deceive
the defense and the nuclear environment they might create by
detonating warheads in space, SDI scientists and General Abrahamson
himself have concluded that passive discrimination alone will not be
effective in the midcourse phase. (Passive discriminators, such as
infrared sensors, attempt to identify objects by detecting their
naturally occurring emissions.) Some projects, such as the Space
Surveillance and Tracking System (SSTS), have been downgraded because
they depend on passive discrimination.
As a result of the anticipated problems with passive
discrimination, SDI has now turned to the concept of interactive
discrimination. This concept is designed to use low-power lasers or
particle beams fired at objects in the midcourse to produce observable
changes in them, whereupon passive sensors would compare the changes
UNCLASSIFIED
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unI-uAoZ) i r I tLJ
in the different objects to sort out the warheads from the decoys.
A question remains, however, as to why some SDI projects dealing
with passive sensors continue at such a high funding level if the
general conclusion is that these sensors would be ineffective. For
example, SDI will spend $380 million to demonstrate in early 1989 the
Airborne Optical Adjunct(AOA), which uses a passive, long-wave
infrared sensor to detect warheads and decoys in the late midcourse
and early terminal phases. Sandia scientists report that AOA's sensor
would have significant problems discriminating warheads from decoys in
a nuclear environment. SDI's program manager for sensors insisted,
however, that AOA would be valuable for the detection and tracking
that is needed before more sophisticated discrimination is
accomplished.
Whatever final discrimination technology proves useful -- keep in
mind, interactive discrimination is still largely a concept rather
than a reality -- it appears that an effective boost phase defense is
still critical to achieving effective discrimination. It is critical
that a boost phase defense thin out the number of warheads and decoys
midcourse discrimination will face. Some SDI officials, therefore,
have concluded that a strategic defense minus the boost phase -- that
is, based only on the midcourse and terminal phases -- would likely be
be overwhelmed by a highly proliferated threat cloud of Soviet
warheads and decoys.
2. Survivability
With boost-phase intercept presently recognized as the linchpin
for a successful defense system, SDI researchers have concluded that
the ultimate problem space-based battle stations will face is
survivability. Space-based directed and kinetic energy weapons
systems or laser relay stations have tremendous technological and
engineering hurdles to cross just to become operational in a non-
military environment. But these hurdles pale compared to operating
and surviving in a military environment.
Figure 17 provides a sampling of Soviet threats and
countermeasures (all of which, the U.S.S.R. would have to pay a price
to implement) that could affect the survivability or degrade the
effectiveness of our space-based assets. They include anti-satellite
(ASAT) weapons, ground-based lasers, electronic counter-measures,
space mines, X-ray lasers, pellets in orbit, paramilitary operations.
As one senior SDI official stated in a briefing, "We've thought of
more threats (to survivability) than even our critics have come up
with." For example, every Soviet warhead the bus dispenses becomes a
potential ASAT weapon if it is salvaged fuzed and explodes near a
space platform. Furthermore, the technology to produce an effective
ASAT weapon in most instances is less stressing than the technology to
produce an effective ABM weapon.
Here is a sampling of some of the more difficult problems:
a. Keep-Out Zones
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Figure 17
SAMPLE OF SOVIET THREATS AND COUNTERMEASURES SDI MIGHT FACE
Anti-satellite weapons
Electronic countermeasures
Space mines
Para-military forces
Depressed trajectories
Booster hardening, spinning
Quick PBV release
Salvage fusing
Decoys
Masked warheads
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Ground-based lasers
X-ray lasers
Pellets in orbit
Proliferation
Clustering ICBM launches
Fast-burn boosters
Maneuvering
Penetration aids
Anti-simulation
Saturation attack
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In the past, SDI officials have talked of establishing keep-out
zones to protect against ASAT's and space mines. The U.S. would
declare a certain area around a satellite - say, hundreds or
thousands of kilometers - off limits. Anything entering the keep-out
zone would be destroyed. "Rules of the road" would be established in
space, much like the law of the high seas, which would govern what
would be threatening to U.S. assets and thus subject to attack.
Keep-out zones, however, create countless headaches for military
planners and diplomats. First, the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which
declares that no nation can claim sovereignty over outer space, would
have to be changed. Second, with thousands of U.S. systems in space
and presumably with thousands of Soviet space-based systems in a
similar strategic defense, and with each U.S. and Soviet satellite
having its own keep-out zone, space will likely become too crowded
with literally no room for satellites to move. Third, ambiguous
behavior would greatly complicate enforcement of keep-out zones. Is
an intruder a straying satellite or a threat? There would also be
considerable room for deception,.such as hiding space mines or nuclear
devices on what are ostensibly commercial vehicles. In our briefings,
we asked repeatedly how our space-based elements would be protected
from Soviet space mines. We never received a plausible answer.
As Figure 18 depicts, other survivability measures being
considered include hardening satellites so they can withstand attack,
making them maneuverable to evade attack, giving them a shootback
capability, or proliferating the defense with more satellites and
decoys. However, SDI studies show that all these counter-
countermeasures pose severe problems.
In order to harden a battle station, make it maneuverable, and
give it a counter-attack capability, at a minimum its mass would have
to be doubled. The U.S. would have considerable difficulty attaining
the lift capacity to put this much weight up in space. The U.S. would
also have difficulty proliferating satellites to any great extent
because it would be too expensive, according to one senior SDI
official. If the Soviet defense develops a capability to discriminate
between a warhead and decoy, it will likely be capable of
discriminating during an attack between defensive weapons and decoys.
No doubt, there will be other survivability measures --
preferential defense of satellites, for example - which would not be
as stressing to the defense. However, at this point survivability
research is in its infancy.
c. Particle Beams And X-ray Lasers
Because it is impractical to shield against neutral particle
beams in space, some SDI officials believe the most difficult
survivability problem the U.S. would face is Soviet neutral particle
beam weapons, which might destroy satellites despite keep out zones,
or otherwise punch a hole in the defense. As one SDI official
described it, a future scenario in which both the U.S. and the
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U.S.S.R. deployed neutral partcile beam weapons in their defenses and
in which these weapons had an anti-satellite capability would be
something like "the re-enactment of the 'Shootout At The OK Corral."'
He who shoots first, wins.
Pop-up X-ray lasers also present an ASAT threat. Indeed, one of
the biggest problems with the U.S. deploying a pop-up X-ray laser in a
defense is the Soviets responding with a pop-up X-ray laser in the
counter-defense (see Figure 19).
The survivability of space-based assets in wartime is not the
only dilemma. They may also have difficulty surviving in peacetime.
For example, one nagging problem for SDI officials is peacetime
attrition attacks. A few U.S. satellites occasionally could get
picked off, perhaps with ground-based lasers, and the Soviets might
deny any responsibility, claiming the satellites were defective.
Or, what if the Soviets, ignoring their treaty obligations,
declare the space over them a keep-out zone and threaten to shoot down
any U.S. BMD battle stations? Since deployment of a U.S. defense
system would have to be phased, could the Soviets block a defensive
system before enough of it was deployed to counter the counter-
measures?
Again, this assessment of survivability problems is not
exhaustive. There are many more difficulties and complications
involved in deploying space-based defenses capable of withstanding
attacks from the offense.
What is the current overall assessment on survivability? At this
point, it appears bleak. Scientists at the Sandia Laboratory who have
been intensely studying this question have come to the conclusion that
space-based, boost-phase defenses can never be made survivable, unless
by treaty. Boost-phase defenses will never be survivable unless the
U.S. and U.S.S.R. agree to certain rules of the road and deployment
restrictions through arms control.
However, in the same breath, these scientists point out that it
is wishful thinking (or a myth, as Figure 20 states) to believe that
survivability can be legislated through arms control. As one SDI
scientist said, if the space-based system "doesn't work on its own, it
won't work with arms control."
Furthermore, if space-based defenses are not survivable with or
without arms control, it does not leave too many appealing options for
boost-phase defense. For example, one Sandia scientist has proposed
solving the survivability problem by deploying U.S.-Soviet space
battle stations that would be built Jointly by both superpowers and by
prearrangement would shoot down ASATs or missiles launched by either
side. The scheme, which has been dubbed MIMAS for Mutually
Implemented Mutually Assured Survival, may be an elegant technological
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Figure 19
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rigure zu
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solution to the survivability problem. But at this point, it is
difficult to imagine any type arms control or other defense regime
that might permit this kind of operation.
Not surprisingly, SDI's program and project managers who
supervise space-based weapons activities are optimistic that the
survivability question may be overcome. Some admit, however, that
solutions to certain aspects of the survivability dilemma (for
example, protecting transition-phase deployment) will have to be
legislated through arms control.
Nevertheless, the Sandia Laboratory findings pose grave questions
for the direction and possibilities of current SDI research. Billions
of research dollars are being pumped into space-based weapons systems.
The Sandia findings suggest that this money might well be wasted.
Furthermore, if boost-phase defense is as critical to the success of
the entire system as SDIO's leadership presently thinks it is, serious
questions need to be asked -- and asked early -- as to whether a
comprehensive strategic defense is really feasible.
It is also obvious from this discussion that one area requiring
much more detailed analysis is the threat strategic defenses would
face. The analysis should be made not just of the threat projected
for today or in the next decade, but also the generated threat into
the 21st century when a strategic defense might be deployed. It was
clear from our briefings that neither the Air Force, the Army, nor the
national laboratories were using the same threat assessment. In fact,
one Air Force officer referred derisively to the many different
assessments as the "threat of the month club." Such comments,
however, can be expected as long as the SDIO has not placed realistic
parameters on the nature and extent of the threat a strategic defense
would be required to deter.
B. Direction Of The Program
The second major emerging problem concerns the direction the SDI
program is taking. This direction, which impacts heavily on the
management of the research effort, has many aspects that can be
categorized as follows:
1. Shifting Priorities
As noted above, the current SDI program is substantially
different from the one proposed by the Fletcher Panel or projected in
the FY84 and FY85 budget submissions. By some counts, almost one half
of SDI's projects have been downselected, reoriented, or given new
missions. Perhaps no better example can be found of the change than
in the Directed Energy Weapons Program.
At the beginning of 1985, SDI officials proposed to spend more
than $1 billion in the next three years researching space-based
chemical lasers in order to conduct a major demonstration project in
the early 1990's. Critics at the time questioned the advisability of
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UIYI.LAJJ 1 r 1 tL 44.
pumping so much money into the research and an early demonstration
project considering the significant operational problems space-based
chemical lasers would have surviving and then attacking missiles in
the boost phase. Nevertheless, SDI insisted that such lasers would be
a valuable weapon for boost-phase attack and a accelerated program to
demonstrate them was justified.
Today, the space-based chemical laser project has fallen from
favor. Its FY86 budget has been cut in half from the $348 million
that was requested at the beginning of last year. It appears obvious,
however, that Congressional budget cuts were not responsible for the
shift in emphasis away from the project. SDI officials have come to
realize that what the critics were saying was correct: there was too
much evidence indicating that space-based chemical laser weapons had
serious operational limitations that would make them militarily
ineffective. (However, the Alpha experiment to demonstrate a low-
power chemical laser is still being funded generally at the same level
requested last year. SDI officials insist that the project still has
value as a test bed; however, clearly another reason for its continued
high funding is that execution of the Alpha contract is too far along
to terminate economically.)
Other directed energy weapons projects have had their missions
changed. Last year neutral particle beam (NPB) technology was being
actively pursued as a space-based weapon. SDI officials now realize
neutral particle beams would have severe operational hurdles to cross
as a BMD weapon in the near term, so a lower-powered version is being
pursued for interactive discrimination. The same verdict is being
given for X-ray lasers, whose only near-term mission would be
midcourse discrimination. Figure 21 depicts the new roles for
directed energy projects in the near term. Last year, most of the
emphasis in the Directed Energy Weapons Program was on developing
directed energy weapons. This emphasis has changed. Directed energy
technology for interactive discrimination has been elevated to equal
emphasis with directed energy weapons research.
The directed energy technology that seems to have jumped to the
head of the line as a boost-phase weapon is the free electron laser
(FEL), particularly the Induction Linac Free-Electron Laser at
Livermore Laboratory (see Figure 22). The Induction Linac FEL, which
would be ground based, has advantages over other FELs in terms of
efficiency and power scalability. As attractive as the Induction
Linac FEL might be, SDI officials still warn, however, that it faces
major technological hurdles in building the laser, propagating a
sufficiently lethal beam through the atmosphere, and constructing the.
relay mirrors.
The SDIO should be commended for recognizing problems in certain
technologies and in shifting its priorities. Indeed, by its very
nature, a research and technology development program is supposed to
be constantly changing. Furthermore, the SDIO should exercise a
certain degree of management freedom and flexibility to respond to
technological evolution and delays in technological advances. But the
dramatic changes that have come about in SDIO's program in the past
year pose a unique set of problems for Congress.
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% Figure 21
NEW APPLICATIONS FOR DIRECTED ENERGY WEAPONS
Application
Technology Basing Mode Near Term Far Term
Free electron Ground- or Midcourse Boost phase,
laser space-based discrimination post-boost
phase,
midcourse
discrimination
Neutral Space-based Midcourse Midcourse
particle beam discrimination discrimination
HF chemical Space-based Midcourse Boost phase,
laser discrimination post-boost
phase,
midcourse
discrimination
RP excimer Ground-based Midcourse Boost phase,
laser discrimination post-boost
phase,
midcourse
discrimination
X-ray laser Pop-up Midcourse Midcourse
discrimination discrimination,
boost phase
Source: Unclassified SDI briefing chart.
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v..v ~~vv a ? VL _
Figure 22
? ? ?
1<
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In many ways, SDI is not like any research project the United
States has ever undertaken. As noted before, it is intensive, heavily
funded, schedule-driven research being conducted not just to explore
technology but to decide by the early 1990s what systems are feasible
for development and deployment. Priority status for a particular
project means hundreds of millions, even billions, of dollars worth of
funding. For example, one midcourse discrimination experiment now a
high priority because it will test a neutral particle beam accelerator
in space may cost up to $1 billion alone. Several one-time
experiments will cost hundreds of millions of dollars each, according
to SDIO.
Last year Congress was asked to appropriate hundreds of millions
of dollars for priority projects, many of which are no longer
priorities this year. This year, Congress is being asked to
appropriate hundreds of millions of dollars for a different set of
priorities. Congress should be concerned about these changes for two
reasons.
First, the dramatic shifts in priorities clearly indicate that
SDI research, contrary to public pronouncements, is still at a very
early stage. In reality, SDI officials, despite the tripling of their
budget, have revealed relatively little about what technologies will
or will not result in a feasible, affordable and survivable
comprehensive missile defense. At this point, they are making only
educated guesses at what that defensive system might look like.
Congress, therefore, should evaluate carefully the SDI priorities
and the hundreds of millions of dollars worth of funding they entail.
Moreover, a certain degree of skepticism is warranted over claims that
certain projects have tremendous potential and deserve priority
funding.
Second, the SDI priorities Congress is being asked to fund this
year may change again next year. As one SDI official pointed out,
"there are opportunities for major technological breakthroughs for any
of the projects we've down-selected." A technology presently not
considered as militarily useful may well move to the head of the line
in the future. Indeed, the fact that the priorities were shifted this
past year in part as a result of the Phase I systems architecture
studies may well result in another shift in priorities next year.
SDI's Panel on Computing in Support of Battle Management,
appointed to consider the computing requirements for strategic
defense, concluded in its 1985 Eastport Study that the Phase I
architectures incorrectly "treated the battle management computing
resources and software as part of a system that could be easily and
hastily added." The architectures, the study continued, were
developed "around the sensors and weapons and have paid only 'lip
service' to the structure of the software that must control and
coordinate the entire system."
The architectures should have been driven more by the
requirements of battle management, according to the Eastport Study.
As a result of this study's recommendations, which called for a
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strategic defense system "less dependent on tight coordination," some
of the weapons and sensors given high priority in the Phase I
architectures may well be down-graded. In other words, the Eastport
Study conclusions indicate that the architecture studies may well have
to be redone to account for the special requirements of battle
management computing.
So far, it has been easy for the SDIO to shift resources to
accommodate these changes. But as the total funding level increases,
as contracts mature, and as hardware is produced, it will not be as
easy to shift funding to new priorities (as we may have discovered
with the Alpha project). In other words, the days of easily making up
for premature priorities are nearing an end.
Furthermore, by rushing toward early technology demonstration
projects SDI officials may well end up with a number of premature
choices and Congress may well end up wasting a lot of tax dollars.
Congress, therefore, should consider the merits of an SDI program
oriented more toward basic and applied research, which is conducted at
a more measured pace and which isn't forced to prematurely establish
priorities.
2. Schedule-Driven Research
As noted in the first part of this report, the SDI organization
has decided to stick with the same decision timeline established with
the technology-limited budget it first proposed, even though Congress
has allowed for a more funding-limited budget. As a result, SDI
officials freely admit that there will be more risks associated with
the early 1990's development decision than if they received the full
appropriations they requested.
Since there is little chance that Congress will make up for past
funding cuts or appropriate all that SDI has requested for FY87 and
the next several years, a closer look must be given to the risks
entailed by sticking to an early 1990's decision date. The following
are some of the problems created by the 1990's decision deadline:
? Because of funding cutbacks and the discovery in some cases
that the technological hurdles are greater than first thought, many
critical technologies won't be on line for a development decision by
the early 1990's. For example, because of the inadequacies of passive
discrimination and the relative newness of interactive technologies,
SDI may not be prepared for a development decision of any value for
midcourse discrimination by the early 1990's. Too many milestones
have either been pushed back or appear unrealistic at this point. It
is therefore likely that a development decision in the early 1990's
would be made not only with significant risks, but also with
significant gaps of information.
? Because an early 1990's development decision would be based on
incomplete research, the chances are greater that bad choices will be
made in that decision. At the very least, SDIO will be commiting
itself to technologies which are in hand or more mature (such as
space-based kinetic kill vehicles) but which have limited growth
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case, decisionmakers would have their demonstration, but it would be
at a lower technological level than if the demonstration deadline were
extended until more sophisticated and higher value technology came on
line.
There is already evidence that this ramping down of technology
for demonstration projects is occurring in SDI. In order to avoid
part of a $103 million cost overrun on AOA, the Airborne Optical
Adjunct (and no doubt its political fallout since the overrun surfaced
just 8 months after the contract was awarded to Boeing Co.), SDI
cancelled a $62 million subcontract with Aerojet Electrosystems Co.,
which was to provide an advanced sensor for one of the two AOA planes
to be demonstrated. The AOA plane would be deployed to track warheads
in the late midcourse and early terminal phases of the defense.
Setting aside for the moment the serious question of whether the
contractor "bought into" the contract (which we were assured by SDI
officials was the case) and whether the Army knew it was a buy-in
(which we were told was not the case), SDI's handling of the cost
overrun is disturbing for the following reason.
Aerojet was to develop a state-of-the-art sensor, which was to be
more advanced than the other sensor another subcontractor, Hughes
Electro-optical and Data Systems Group, was to build using off-the-
shelf technology. The Aerojet sensor was to have a significantly
different detection capability than the Hughes sensor. It was to be
more sensitive, have a longer acquisition range and be more resistant
to nuclear effects than the Hughes sensor.
In order to avoid a cost overrun and meet generally the same
demonstration deadline, SDI dropped the Aerojet contract and will
likely be demonstrating a less capable Hughes sensor on AOA. Not only
that, but SDI has also forfeited the technology base Aeroject would
have established with development of its sensor. In addition, it has
lost the advantage of two types of sensor approaches, and has left
itself in a risky position if the one AOA plane with the Hughes sensor
experiences a catastrophic failure.
As mentioned earlier in this report, we question the overall
value of AOA because of the limitations of passive discrimination.
SDIO officials insist, however, that AOA is needed as a supplement to
more sophisticated discrimination. If there is a supplemental role
for AOA and considering the severe technological hurdles AOA still
must cross, particularly in a nuclear environment, the question then
arises as to whether the Aerojet contract should have been dropped and
whether the demonstration deadline should not have been left open-
ended for the moment. As it now stands, decisionmakers will get the
demonstration, but it will be of a less capable system.
There is nothing unusual about military research programs having
definable objectives and schedules for meeting them. There is also
nothing disturbing about program managers striving to meet those goals
within a set schedule. The problem arises when the objectives are
unrealistic and the deadlines are arbitrary. Congress, therefore,
should ask two very important questions about the schedule-driven
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t r ICU
potential (e.g., against Soviet fast-burn boosters).
Moreover, a chief researcher at Livermore laboratory expressed
concern that schedule-driven research might result in a "series of
sleazy stunts" rather than well thought-out experiments. As he
pointed out, the objective of research is not succcess but increased
knowledge. The pressure to achieve success will ultimately result in
a degradation of the research.
The Eastport Study also expressed concern that a "time-driven
choice for a specific strategic defense architecture" might lock SDI
into a defense that future computers and software would not be able to
manage. While shifting priorities might be a relatively painless task
at the moment, early 1990's development decisions will be more
difficult and expensive to change later.
? The development decision for technologies still projected to
come on line by the early 1990's may be more complex and subjective
than some realize. Take, for example, space-based kinetic energy
weapons, SDI's only near-term deployment option at the moment for
boost-phase kill. By the early 1990's, this project will only be
capable of completing "near-term validation experiments," according to
the Kinetic Energy Weapons (KEW) Program manager, instead of a single
demonstration of the technology.
These validation experiments will consist of a host of subtests,
which, when taken together, will supposedly demonstrate the
feasibility of space-based KEWs. Decisionmakers in the early 1990s
thus will be shown different experiments or their parts, simulations
and modeling where experiments could not be conducted, and "different
pieces of information," according to the program manager, and from all
this a "straightforward decision to go into full-scale development
will be made." The program manager conceded that subjectivity will be
a factor in the decision. "There will likely be disagreement on
whether we go forward," he said. "In that decision there will be a
level of risk and a level of certainty."
Decisions on other technologies will likely be even more
subjective. For example, "if one wants to decide which software
development technique is most appropriate for a particular set of the
battle management software," reports the Eastport Study, "one can not
make an objective assessment; it will likely rely at least partially
on anecdotal evidence and the subjective judgement of experienced
people."
For that matter, more discussion is needed as to what exactly an
early 1990's development decision will produce. Will it be a go or
no-go decision on a baseline architecture with X number of phases and
Y weapons that will take Z years to deploy? Or will it be a go or no-
go decision on the general evolution of strategic defense with no
precise projection of its parameters or capabilities?
? There is a danger that schedule-driven research will force
technological development to be ramped down in order to achieve
technology demonstrations for the early 1990's decision date. In this
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research SDI is pursuing:
First, what is the justification for an early 1990's development
decision? Why is it so important to stick to that deadline if it will
entail such risks? The authors of this report were offered no
substantive justification for the early 1990's decision date.
Certainly the Soviet ABM program was never cited as a reason. At this
point, it appears to be an arbitrary date.
Second, what kind of tradeoff is there between adhering to an
early 1990's development decision date and extending the deadline to
allow for more maturation of the research and to continue a vigorous
research effort across a wide spectrum of technologies? It is clear
from the above discussion that an early 1990's decision carries
adverse consequences. These must be weighed against the consequences
of delaying that decision.
3. Transportation, Support and Logistics
In considering the cost and complexity of a comprehensive
strategic defense both SDI proponents and opponents tend to focus on
just the weapons, sensors and battle management components that would
be deployed. Indeed, these systems are daunting by themselves. The
Phase I architecture studies envision hundreds of space-based
platforms for the surveillance, tracking and acquisition of ICBMs and
their warheads, thousands of space-based kinetic kill vehicle battle
st3ations, a multitude of relay mirrors in space, battle management and
C satellites in geosynchronous orbit, hundreds of land-based radars
and battle management centers, and tens of thousands of ground-based
interceptor rockets.
Too often ignored in considerations of a strategic defense,
however, is what will be needed to put the defense in place and
maintain it. To get a true picture of the cost and complexity of
strategic defense one must superimpose over the architecture of
weapons, sensors and computers the architecture of transportation,
support and logistics.
Figure 23 depicts the minimal architecture that might be needed
to deploy and maintain a strategic defense. It includes massive
launch and recovery operations, an industrial complex to build the
weapons and sensors, refurbish operations for maintenance and
conversions, mission control and planning operations, low-earth orbit
and high-earth orbit operations to deploy and maintain space-based
assets, inter-orbit operations and intra-orbit operations,
communications operations to establish and maintain the nets, plus an
extensive ground transportation system.
It appears that the transportation-support-logistics system for a
comprehensive strategic defense may well be as complex and
unprecedented as the defense itself. So far, the debate over SDI has
centered on whether the defense is feasible. However, serious
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TRANSPORTATION, SUPPORT AND
LOGISTICS SYSTEMS INTEGRATION
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questions should now be raised as to whether a transportation-support-
logistics system for the defense is feasible.
The U.S. transportation-support-logistics system is currently
inadequate and would entail too much cost to sustain a strategic
defense, SDI officials concede. That is why General Abrahamson and
other SDI officials are hesitant to forecast SDI deployment costs
based on current U.S. transportation-support-logistics capabilities.
They prefer to forecast what strategic defense deployment should cost.
In order to make SDI affordable in the future, and as a result
cost-effective at the margin per one of Ambassador Nitze's criterion,
there will have to be substantial change in U.S. transportation-
support-logistic capabilities. And for this change to occur, SDI
officials admit, there will have to be a revolution in the research,
development, testing and production methods of the Defense Department
and the U.S. defense industry. What follows are but a few of the
changes that must occur:
a. Henry Ford Production Techniques
Presently each U.S. satellite is individually handcrafted. No
two are exactly alike. More uniformity and efficiency is achieved
with ground-based missiles and launchers, but not a great deal. Space
shuttles cost about $2 billion each, MX missiles presently about $67
million each.
In order to make the tens of thousands of SDI missiles and
satellites affordable, SDI officials say that "Henry Ford production
methods" will have to be introduced into the way these vehicles are
produced. The aerospace and defense industry will have to undergo
fundamental changes in their methods of production so a missile will
cost hundreds of thousands of dollars instead of millions, and a
satellite will cost millions of dollars instead of hundreds of
millions.
b. Transportation Requirements
SDI's rough schedule, according to its program managers, calls
for a development decision by the early 1990's as noted above,
deployment beginning in the late 1990's, with useful service of the
defense system not commencing until about 2005. In other words, the
more than $5 billion the President is requesting in FY1987 for SDI
research is for a system that will not be in service until nearly two
decades later.
This lengthy germination period for SDI seems to stem in part
from the transportation capability that would have to be developed to
place space-based defenses in orbit.
Presently, it costs $1,500 to $3,000 to lift a pound of material
into orbit. U.S. space shuttles and other launchers now put less than
one million pounds in space per year. The Phase I architecture
studies predicted that anywhere from 20 to 200 million pounds of SDI
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34
Figure 24
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Figure 25
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material would have to be put in space. That would conceivably mean
600 to 5,000 shuttle flights whose launch cost could run anywhere from
$30 billion to $600 billion at today's prices. SDI officials say the
cost per pound would have to be reduced to $200 to $400. (See Figures
24 and 25 for the range of architecture lift requirements. The
baseline architecture calls for lifting 58 million pounds into orbit
at a cost today of $87 billion to $174 billion for transportation
alone).
Furthermore, the current space shuttle is too small for the SDI
task. Dr. William Lucas, director of NASA's Marshall Space Flight
Center has noted that 166 of the proposed SDIO payloads would not fit
into shuttle craft's bay.
Even before the loss of the Challenger, the shuttle was
considered inadequate to the task of SDI deployment, according to
Congressional testimony last year by General Abrahamson.
Last summer, Edward C. Aldridge, Undersecretary of the Air Force,
testified that NASA and DoD's projected payloads through the 1990's
would require 19-24 space shuttle missions per year. This assumed,
however, four orbiters achieving 24 flights per year, no major
problems with the shuttle, no commercial and foreign payloads in
addition to NASA's payloads, no support for the Reagan-initiated space
station, and no SDI deployments. A NASA official also testified that
three space shuttle orbiters could sustain only 15-20 flights per
year. Clearly, the loss of the Challenger, which leaves us with only
three orbiters, presents a problem if the U.S. is to carry through
with the Administration's space station initiative, develop SDI,
maintain a vigorous military space program, and promote the
commercialization of space.
It appears evident that other space transportation options will
have to be developed. The White House has directed that a study be
made of those options for 1995 and beyond.
To accomplish the launching of SDI space-based elements, a
variety of heavy lift rockets and a hypersonic plane are under
consideration.
Timelines for heavy lift rockets indicate that Shuttle II, the
follow-on to the current shuttle, would not be operational, however,
until after the year 2000. A single-stage-to-orbit vehicle also would
not be operational until about the year 2000. A derivative of the
space shuttle that could launch material into space somewhat cheaper.
than the current shuttle, although probably not cheap enough for
SDIO's requirements, would not be operational until about 1995 (see
figure 26).
The hypersonic plane under consideration has been variously
called the National Aerospace Plane, the "X-plane," the trans-
atmospheric vehicle (TAV), and, by President Reagan, the "Orient
Express." Such a craft would be a revolutionary airbreathing airplane
with engines capable of propelling it to 4,000 to 8,000 miles per hour
in the upper atmosphere, then literally accelerating itself to
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Figure 26
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sufficient speed to leave the atmosphere to achieve orbit in space.
While George Keyworth, former White House Science Advisor, has
claimed that the trans-atmospheric vehicle (TAV) could be available by
the year 2000, NASA Associate Administrator Raymond Calladay called it
"the most complex vehicle ever built" and SDIO's briefing chart did
not envision it becoming operational until the year 2005 - or about
the time SDI presumably would have been deployed. While some see the
TAV as a candidate launch vehicle for the strategic defense system, an
SDI program manager briefing us was highly skeptical of its potential
as far as SDI was concerned, noting that for the moment the TAV has
"more hype than possibility."
Keep in mind that even if a launch system is available for SDI at
an affordable price, there would still have to be a tremendous effort
undertaken to get the space-based assets in orbit. SDI timeline
charts estimate that it would take as much as eight years to
physically deploy the space defense system.
Setting aside for the moment the issue of which follow-on to the
shuttle will be chosen, a critical question remains. What will it
take to triple the current U.S. lift capacity and cut its cost almost
tenfold in order to affordably place SDI in space?
"You would need a complete revolution in the way NASA operates,"
said one senior SDI official. "This is a national issue, not an SDI
issue. The investment by this country into the cost effectiveness of
launching vehicles in space has been essentially zero since the early
'70s." To radically increase its launches and decrease its costs,
NASA will "have to get rid of the manpower-intensive launch operation
it now has," this official explained. Currently, 26,700 persons are
engaged in space shuttle support. "We're going to have to get man out
of the loop," he said, adding that he did not have a firm opinion as
to whether manned spaceflight will be required.
c. Support Activities
A number of auxiliary activities in support of SDI will have to
undergo fundamental changes from their current capabilities. For
example, the Fletcher Panel implied that SDI's communication network
would be based on the defense system's own assets. The Eastport Study
believes, however, that a separate network of communications
satellites is needed to support the defense. But that will
necessitate change. "The existing communications technology can not
support the special requirements of the envisioned strategic defense
system," the Eastport Study concluded, adding that existing
communications security systems also "are not suitable for strategic
defense."
d. Hurdles For Innovation
Of particular concern to the Eastport Study was the fact that .
many technology innovations never survive Pentagon bureacracy. As a
result, defense technology often lags behind state-of-the-art
technology. SDI will have to break this pattern so research can be
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conducted into innovative technologies and can produce substantially
more affordable weapons systems.
As the Eastport Study noted: "it will be necessary to propagate a
different culture of system development that will exploit the emerging
technologies... The endless demands of project schedules, the lack of
capable staff, the lack of capital equipment, the 'not-invented-here'
syndrome, the conservatism in procurement decisions, and bureacracy
have created a culture that resists change and takes only naive risks.
SDIO must create a new culture that can adapt to changes more
effectively." In other words, SDI cannot become just another weapons
program fraught with delays, cost overruns and bureaucratic inertia.
To be affordable it must break that mold.
Can the Department of Defense and the U.S. defense industry
undergo this revolution to attain the production efficiencies needed
to make SDI affordable? Can a more economical system be devised to
deploy and maintain a strategic defense system? Can military
research, development and procurement practices be changed to produce
complex weapons systems less expensive than ever before imagined? Can
the space industry be catapulted into a more efficient and vastly
expanded form of operation? Can decades of entrenched administrative
behavior in the Pentagon, aerospace and defense industries, and NASA
be radically altered?
SDI officials remain remarkably sanguine about the revolution
that must occur. They believe there can be change, particularly as a
new generation of researchers, engineers and military leaders are
inculcated with the new demands and requirements of strategic defense.
For the moment, their attention is focused more on the weapons,
sensors and computers that will fight the defensive war rather than
the transportation, support and logistics that will create and sustain
it. Congress, however, should be wary of such optimistic assessments.
If the past is any guide, administrative and sociological hurdles
become as difficult to overcome as the technological ones.
4. Administration
We were impressed with the SDI officials, managers, scientists
and engineers who briefed us. From General Abrahamson on down, they
displayed an unusually high degree of professionalism and dedication-
to the mission they have been assigned. Nevertheless, some problems
appear to be surfacing in the management and administration of SDI.
There appears to be some duplication of services among the
laboratories and the military agencies working on SDI research. For
example, both the Army and Air Force have their own systems, battle
management, and support offices. For the moment, it is open to
question how harmful or helpful this duplication is. In the future,
however, they will have to be consolidated for greater efficiency and
effectiveness.
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Service rivalry, particularly between the Army and the Air Force
is beginning to creep into the SDI program. This situation will get
worse before it gets better. There also appears to be some tension
growing between the SDI organization and the services and the
laboratories. This tension may be exacerbated by the large increase
in SDI's funding, which the services and labs complain are resulting
in less and in some cases inadequate funding available for other vital
military research.
There is also a growing rivalry among the national laboratories
researching SDI. In some respects this rivalry can be healthy.
However, it can be detrimental, SDI scientists warn, when it leads to
labs making unsubstantiated claims of success for their own work or
unfair criticisms of the work of other labs. For example, some SDI
scientists were deeply concerned over high officials at the Livermore
Laboratory making inflated claims about the X-ray laser's
capabilities. The scientists, including some at Livermore, also were
deeply concerned that inflated claims by lab and SDI officials of the
research's progress would adversely affect the credibility of the
laboratories.
The briefings and interviews conducted for this report revealed
two additional points that must be considered in assessing the value
of arms control for SDI.
1. Some of SDI's supporters have maintained that the 1972 ABM
Treaty is no longer in the United State's national security interest
and is presently holding back SDI research. The authors could find no
credible evidence of SDI research at this early stage being adversely
affected by the ABM Treaty. SDI, no doubt could conduct early tests
and experiments that would clearly violate the ABM Treaty. The case
has not been made, however, that these experiments would be necessary
at this point for the overall progress of the research.
On the contrary, a violation at this point could do serious harm
to U.S. national security and the SDI program. As one senior officer
deeply involved in SDI research admitted, "It is not in our interest
to violate the ABM Treaty at this point because of the Soviet breakout
capability."
Intelligence analysts estimate it would take about four years for
the Soviet Union to break out of the ABM Treaty and expand its missile
defense system in an attempt to cover a full range of military
targets. However, as the SDI program progresses, the time it would
take the U.S. to respond to a Soviet breakout with a similar
deployment stretches out because of the shift in resources in SDI from
near-term technologies to defend hardened military sites such as
missile silos to far-term technologies to shield cities and other
civilian targets.
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This shift is in keeping with the President's goal of a
comprehensive non-nuclear defense; however, as a result, "we haven't
done a lot to protect our near-term options," said the senior officer.
Therefore, as SDI research progresses it is in our near-term interest
that both superpowers abide by the ABM Treaty, because a premature
violation could result in the Soviets starting the ABM race a lap
ahead of us.
2. There is also the belief among some SDI proponents that the
current U.S.-Soviet strategic arms limitation agreements, particularly
SALT II, are not in our national security interests. SDI officials,
however, admit that the SALT limits are presently in their best
interest. "I would not like to see the Soviets go beyond the SALT
limits," said General Abrahamson.
The reason is simple. A U.S.-Soviet breakout of SALT only
compounds the problems SDI faces in both the near and far term. It
could mean a doubling of the Soviet strategic warhead threat within a
decade. By the end of the century, the number of RVs under a
proliferated threat might be quadrupled. (See Figure 27.)
It is generally agreed within SDI that a U.S. defensive
deployment would have to proceed hand-in-hand with deep reductions in
Soviet offensive nuclear forces for the defense to be truly effective.
Current limitations leave a Soviet offensive nuclear arms force that
would be stressing enough to U.S. strategic defense. Further Soviet
increases would only only increase the problems for that defense.
President Reagan has challenged conventional notions of the value
of both deterrence and arms control. It remains to be seen whether
mutual assured survival can replace the present deterrence/arms
control regiwe. For the aomant, however, it is clear that any break
with arms control would be damaging not only to U.S. national
security, but SDI's goal as well.
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Figure 27
tM 1JIAOS
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GLOSSARY OF TERMS AND ABBREVIATIONS
ABM anti-ballistic missile
AOA airborne optical adjunct
ATP aquisition, tracking, and pointing
ATSU accelerator test stand upgrade
BMD ballistic missile defense
BM/C3 battle management/command, control and
communications
BSTS boost surveillance and tracking system
DARPA Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
DEW directed energy weapons
DOD Department of Defense
ENDO-NNK endoatmospheric non-nuclear kill
EXO-NNK exoatmospheric non-nuclear kill
ERIS exoatmosperic reentry interceptor
experiment
FEL free electron laser
HOE homing overlay experiment
HEDI high endoatmospheric defense interceptor
ICBM intercontinental ballistic missile
IR infra red
KEW kinetic energy weapons
LAMP large advanced mirror program
LODE large optics demonstration experiment
LWIR long wavelength infrared prob
MIRCLE mid-infrared chemical laser
SATKA surveillance, acquisition, tracking, and
kill assessment
SBKKV space based kinetic kill vehicle
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aYaLC sea particle beam
SDI Strategic Defense Initiative
SDIO Strategic Defense Initiative Organization
SSTS space surveillance and tracking system
TIR terminal imaging radar
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