[Senate Hearing 107-558]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 107-558
CRUISE MISSILE AND UAV THREATS TO THE UNITED STATES
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HEARING
before the
INTERNATIONAL SECURITY, PROLIFERATION AND FEDERAL SERVICES SUBCOMMITTEE
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JUNE 11, 2002
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Governmental Affairs
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman
CARL LEVIN, Michigan FRED THOMPSON, Tennessee
DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii TED STEVENS, Alaska
RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine
ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio
MAX CLELAND, Georgia THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah
JEAN CARNAHAN, Missouri JIM BUNNING, Kentucky
MARK DAYTON, Minnesota PETER G. FITZGERALD, Illinois
Joyce A. Rechtschaffen, Staff Director and Counsel
Richard A. Hertling, Minority Staff Director
Darla D. Cassell, Chief Clerk
------
INTERNATIONAL SECURITY, PROLIFERATION AND FEDERAL SERVICES SUBCOMMITTEE
DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii, Chairman
CARL LEVIN, Michigan THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi
ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey TED STEVENS, Alaska
MAX CLELAND, Georgia SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio
JEAN CARNAHAN, Missouri ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah
MARK DAYTON, Minnesota PETER G. FITZGERALD, Illinois
Richard J. Kessler, Staff Director
Dennis M. Ward, Minority Staff Director
Brian D. Rubens, Chief Clerk
C O N T E N T S
------
Opening statements:
Page
Senator Akaka................................................ 1
Senator Cochran.............................................. 3
WITNESSES
Tuesday, June 11, 2002
Vann H. Van Diepen, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of
Nonproliferation, U.S. Department of State..................... 3
Christopher Bolkcom, Analyst in Naitonal Defense, Foreign
Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division, Congressional Research
Service........................................................ 13
Dennis Gormley, Senior Fellow, International Institute for
Strategic Studies.............................................. 14
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Bolkcom, Christopher:
Testimony.................................................... 13
Prepared statement........................................... 28
Gormley, Dennis:
Testimony.................................................... 14
Prepared statement........................................... 59
Van Diepen, Vann H.:
Testimony.................................................... 3
Prepared statement........................................... 23
Appendix
Questions for the Record submitted from Chairman Akaka to:
Mr. Van Diepen............................................... 69
Mr. Bolkcom.................................................. 73
Mr. Gormley.................................................. 74
CRUISE MISSILE AND UAV THREATS TO THE UNITED STATES
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TUESDAY, JUNE 11, 2002
U.S. Senate,
International Security, Proliferation,
and Federal Services Subcommittee,
of the Committee on Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in
room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Daniel K.
Akaka, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senators Akaka, Cochran, and Stevens.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AKAKA
Senator Akaka. The Subcommittee will please come to order.
Good morning to all, especially our witnesses. I would like to
thank our witnesses for being with us today to discuss cruise
missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAV, and their
threats to the United States.
During the early days of Operation Enduring Freedom, United
States and coalition troops found an American manual on how to
operate a remotely-controlled unmanned helicopter in an al
Qaeda safe house in Afghanistan. And just 2 weeks ago, the
intelligence community issued a terrorist alert to the airline
industry because of a portable shoulder-launched missile casing
that was found abandoned outside an airfield in Saudi Arabia.
While remotely-controlled helicopters and so called ``man-
pads'' are not cruise missiles, they demonstrate the threats we
face, both at home and abroad, from cheaper and easier-to-use
and long-ignored alternatives to ballistic missiles.
During the Subcommittee hearing on the National
Intelligence Estimate on Foreign Missile Developments, we
learned that between one and two dozen countries will possess a
land attack cruise missile capability by the year 2015 through
indigenous development, acquisition, or modification of other
systems, such as anti-ship cruise missiles or UAVs.
In fact, in every hearing I have chaired in the past year
on weapons of mass destruction proliferation, the subject of
cruise missiles was raised. For this reason, I believe it is
necessary to examine the cruise missile threat to America and
the extent of cruise missile proliferation. I have included
UAVs both because of the apparent interest by al Qaeda
terrorists and because an armed UAV technically is a type of
cruise missile.
Cruise missiles are any unmanned, self-propelled, and
guided vehicle whose primary mission is to place a special
payload on a target. Cruise missiles vary greatly in their
speed and range and are often an afterthought to ballistic
missile concerns.
In many ways, cruise missile proliferation is more
difficult to tackle than ballistic missiles. They share many
features with commercial aircraft which have legitimate uses
and are less expensive to build. These similarities make it
difficult to inhibit cruise missile proliferation without
impacting the aircraft industry.
The Missile Technology Control Regime, or MTCR, was
established by the United States and our G-7 partners in 1987
to restrict the proliferation of long-range ballistic and
cruise missiles and to delegitimize their sale. Currently, 33
nations belong to the MTCR. However, the MTCR is only as
effective as the effort member nations put into implementing it
and ensuring that it is comprehensive in the technology it
controls.
During our Subcommittee hearing last week on Russian export
controls, we learned that Russian officials drafted license
requests so that cruise missile sales intended for India would
fall just under the MTCR guidelines. India has the capability
and history of modifying these missiles to then exceed the
range and payload limits.
This practice, which is not limited to Russia, shows that
unlike ballistic missiles, there is not strong consensus
between MTCR member states that cruise missiles are
sufficiently dangerous to warrant tighter controls. There is
not even agreement on which items or technologies need to be
controlled.
The willingness of member states to export cruise missile
and UAV technology is proof of this. The United States also is
caught between national security concerns and the profitable
world of cruise missile and UAV sales.
The administration has asked the producers of the Predator
UAV for a new version for export to non-NATO allies. The new
version would have modifications that would make it impossible
for the buyer to arm or augment it into a system that would
violate the MTCR. But do MTCR limitations on cruise missiles
address our security concerns and are other MTCR members making
similar efforts in their export of cruise missiles and UAVs?
That is a question.
I look forward to discussing these important questions with
our witnesses and I welcome Vann Van Diepen, Deputy Assistant
Secretary of State for Nonproliferation, our first panel's sole
witness. He will discuss the global interest in cruise missiles
and UAVs, how the MTCR addresses this threat, and what measures
the administration is pursuing other than the MTCR to stem
cruise missile proliferation.
Mr. Van Diepen has returned recently from the April MTCR
working group meeting in Paris. I hope he will share with us
the discussions on cruise missiles and whether our MTCR
partners share our concerns. So I look forward to that.
I would like to call on my friend and partner here, Senator
Cochran, for any statement he may have.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COCHRAN
Senator Cochran. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much, and
thank you for convening the hearing. I join you in welcoming
our witnesses this morning to this hearing and hope that we
will learn about the nature of the threat to the United States
and our security interests from unmanned aerial vehicles and
cruise missiles.
We have had hearings and have taken steps to try to develop
legislation to improve our defenses against ballistic missiles.
The threat seemed to be more clear and present in connection
with ballistic missiles because up to 35 nation states have the
capability of using ballistic missiles to threaten our troops
in the field and Americans around the world, as well as our
homeland.
I am advised that up to nine nation states have the
capability of using land-attack cruise missiles. Unmanned
aerial vehicles are similar in that they can be converted to
cruise missiles, as I understand the technology. But we will
learn more about the details from these witnesses and I am sure
we will be better positioned in terms of our understanding of
the nature of the threat to take whatever action the Congress
deems appropriate to be sure that we are capable of defending
against these threats as well as ballistic missile threats.
Thank you for being here, Mr. Van Diepen. I look forward to
your testimony.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Senator Cochran.
Mr. Van Diepen, we welcome you here and welcome any
statement you may have. You may proceed.
TESTIMONY OF VANN H. VAN DIEPEN,\1\ ACTING DEPUTY ASSISTANT
SECRETARY, BUREAU OF NONPROLIFERATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Mr. Van Diepen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Senator
Cochran. It is my privilege to testify before you on the
important subject of the proliferation implications of cruise
missiles and unmanned air vehicles, or UAVs. These systems
provide important capabilities to the United States and our
friends and allies, but in the hands of our adversaries can
pose substantial threats. I will discuss briefly the threat
potential of cruise missile and UAV proliferation and then
describe the steps that the United States and our partners have
been taking to impede that threat.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Van Diepen appears in the
Appendix on page 23.
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Unmanned air vehicles is the term used in the Missile
Technology Control Regime, the MTCR, to refer to unmanned
systems that fly within the atmosphere and are not rocket
propelled. Different terms may be used in other contexts, but
for MTCR purposes, this term includes cruise missiles as well
as target drones, reconnaissance drones, and other forms of
unmanned air vehicles, be they military or civilian, armed or
unarmed. UAVs can be as large as a jetliner or as small as a
model airplane.
UAVs have been in military service since at least the use
of the V-1 cruise missile in World War II. Since then, their
use has grown dramatically in land attack, reconnaissance, as
targets, and even in some civilian applications, such as crop
dusting. As UAVs become more capable, they are taking on more
missions that had exclusively been borne by manned aircraft.
The same attributes that make UAVs so useful for the U.S.
military make UAVs threatening in the hands of our adversaries.
UAVs are potential delivery systems for weapons of mass
destruction and they are ideally suited for delivering chemical
and biological weapons. As you have noted in your statement,
Mr. Chairman, there is a potential for terrorist groups to
produce or acquire UAVs.
U.S. efforts to impede threats stemming from the
proliferation of UAVs and UAV technology encompass a broad
spectrum of measures. As in the other nonproliferation areas,
the U.S. attempts to aggressively use all the following tools
that I will briefly describe to affect various aspects of the
UAV proliferation threat.
First, norms such as the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty,
the Biological Weapons Convention, the Chemical Weapons
Convention, and the MTCR guidelines help dissuade new countries
from getting into the WMD delivery business, including via
UAVs. They impede and delegitimize WMD proliferation and the
proliferation of UAVs for WMD delivery. And, these norms help
support our other nonproliferation measures.
Export controls, both national and multilateral, help deny
proliferators access to technologies that might be misused to
develop WMD delivery systems and they help slow down adversary
UAV programs, make those programs more costly and less
effective and less reliable than would otherwise be the case.
The key export control instrument is the Missile Technology
Control Regime, which from its beginning in 1987 subjected
exports of unmanned air vehicles inherently capable of
delivering a payload of at least 500 kilograms to a range of at
least 300 kilometers, so-called Category I UAVs or MTCR-class
UAVs, and their directly associated technology to an
unconditional strong presumption of denial. Exports of the
specially designed production facilities for Category I UAVs
are prohibited.
Key components and materials usable in producing MTCR-class
UAVs, as well as many UAVs not captured under Category I, are
controlled under the MTCR as so-called Category II items, the
export of which are reviewed on a case-by-case basis against
specified nonproliferation criteria.
In addition to MTCR controls, military UAVs, their
components, and a wide range of materials and equipment useful
in producing military UAVs are controlled under the so-called
Wassenaar Arrangement, the nonproliferation regime for
conventional arms and associated dual-use items.
Now, there are a large number of items relevant to the
production of UAVs that are not controlled under either the
MTCR or Wassenaar, mostly because of their broad civil uses. On
a national basis, the United States and most of the other
members of the nonproliferation regimes have enacted so-called
``catch-all'' controls that give them a legal basis to control
exports of these unlisted items when they are intended for use
in WMD delivery.
Related to the export control tool are the very extensive
export control assistance programs that the United States has
to help other countries to enact and enforce export controls
that are compatible with those of the MTCR and the Wassenaar
Arrangement.
Now, in addition to its export control role, the MTCR also
serves as a forum where member countries can share information
and concerns and coordinate their national missile
nonproliferation efforts, and over the past several years, UAVs
have taken on an increasing prominence in the discussions of
the MTCR.
Another tool we use is interdiction. The United States has
a longstanding program of identifying potential exports of
proliferation concern and working with other countries to
investigate and, if warranted, stop such exports.
Another tool are sanctions. A variety of U.S. domestic laws
require sanctions against foreign governments or entities
involved in certain activities, including proliferation
activities related to UAVs. The threat of sanctions can act as
a deterrent to proliferation activity, and in some cases, the
diplomacy surrounding sanctions or sanctions waivers can result
in positive nonproliferation progress.
Another important tool is our military efforts, which, of
course, go beyond my scope as a State Department person.
Nonetheless, our efforts to try to defend against adversary
UAVs, to defend against the WMD they might deliver, as well as
to be able, if necessary, to destroy adversary UAV holdings or
to retaliate against the use against us by adversaries of UAVs
or WMD delivered by UAVs all help to deter the use of UAVs
against us and our friends and help to make the UAVs a less
attractive option for our adversaries to pursue.
Good intelligence is central to nonproliferation, and this
is a very important nonproliferation tool. The U.S.
intelligence community has done a very good job in building
awareness of the UAV threat, in supporting U.S.
nonproliferation efforts, in facilitating interdictions, and in
assisting other countries' enforcement of their export
controls.
Finally, all the tools that I have mentioned are enabled by
active U.S. diplomacy, and not only is diplomacy a tool that
enables the others, there are times where we can use diplomacy
directly, independent of the other tools, to promote good
behavior and dissuade irresponsible behavior.
Energetic U.S. use of all these tools and intensive
cooperation with our friends and allies have had a positive
impact in impeding the UAV proliferation threat. Adversaries'
efforts to acquire UAVs have been complicated and made more
time consuming and expensive. To the extent that they have been
able to acquire UAVs, our adversaries have had to settle for
systems that are less effective and less reliable than if our
nonproliferation efforts had not existed.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, just as UAVs provide real
opportunities for U.S. and allied militaries, they also provide
opportunities for our adversaries to threaten us. Dealing with
the UAV threat has been a part of U.S. nonproliferation efforts
for over 15 years and we have been strengthening our ability to
impede and cope with it, including by broadening MTCR export
controls, adding catch-all controls, and improving our military
and intelligence capabilities. But we will need to keep working
hard to keep pace with the threat, not only because our
adversaries are determined, but because the increasing reliance
on UAVs worldwide and the dual-use nature of much UAV
technology will make our job more difficult in the future.
Thank you.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Mr. Van Diepen.
Senator Akaka. I would like to ask Senator Stevens if you
have any comments.
Senator Stevens. I am sorry to be late and I have no
opening statement. Thank you very much.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much for being with us.
Mr. Van Diepen, we are certainly interested in the meeting
you had in July 2000 with MTCR members. We understand that you
were there to discuss ways of reducing ambiguities over limits
on cruise missile technologies and also to forge a consensus
over how the regime's provisions apply to cruise missile
transfers. My question is, when will the MTCR announce new
guidelines for cruise missile technologies?
Mr. Van Diepen. Thank you, Senator. I do not think that
that is exactly corresponding to what is going on in the
regime. First of all, as I indicated in my statement, the basic
controls on cruise missiles themselves have been in place in
the regime since 1987 and additional cruise missiles were added
to Category II controls in 1994. A number of key items useful
in making cruise missiles, certain types of turbo-jet and
turbo-fan engines, certain Global Positioning System receivers,
guidance systems, composite materials, and so on have been
subject to MTCR control from the very beginning.
What has been going on in the regime over the past few
years as part of the overall effort of reviewing the entire
MTCR annex, the list of equipment and technologies that the
regime controls, to make sure they are up to date, to make sure
that any loopholes are closed, to expand the list where it is
warranted. Part of that has been to look at that effort with
the cruise missile threat, the UAV threat, and the associated
threat of CBW delivery, for which UAVs are especially
interesting, in mind.
And so, for example, we are refining the controls on the
turbo-jet and turbo-fan engines that are the primary propulsion
means for cruise missiles to make sure that they are adequate.
We are trying to expand the universe of the Global Positioning
System receivers that are of the highest threat potential for
use in cruise missiles. We are trying to refine the definitions
of range and payload as used in the MTCR, not just for UAV
purposes but for ballistic missile purposes, as well.
So there is an ongoing effort underway to refine the
controls to try and make sure they are as effective as
possible. Part of that is a cruise missile focused effort, but
it is a broader effort, as well, and as these individual
decisions are taken, they are announced when they are taken and
they get reflected in the United States in changes to usually
the Commerce Control list that are published in the Federal
Register.
Senator Akaka. When do you think these changes will be
announced?
Mr. Van Diepen. I think these sort of dribble and drabble
out as consensus is reached, and with a 33-nation regime,
sometimes reaching consensus can be a challenge. I would guess
that we will probably have some of those items agreed at the
next MTCR plenary, which will be at the end of September in
Warsaw.
Senator Akaka. Talking about payloads, let us go back to
1993. In 1993, the MTCR members were directed to assess whether
recipient states could modify missiles to meet longer range and
larger payload limits before permitting missile exports. This
change is especially important for cruise missiles because they
can be easily altered.
The question is, how do member states judge whether a
potential recipient has the capability and intent to modify a
missile, and has this change resulted in an increase or
decrease in the number of export licenses by MTCR states?
Mr. Van Diepen. Well, first of all, the 1993 decision
basically made explicit what had been implicit in the MTCR from
the beginning, the idea that in judging the capability of a
system to exceed the Category I range/payload parameters, 300
kilometers, 500 kilograms, that one has to apply what we like
to call in the United States the inherent capability principle,
that one needs to look at the inherent technical capability of
the system to exceed a range of 300 kilometers with a 500
kilogram payload regardless of whether the system is actually
deployed in that configuration, regardless of whether it is
advertised to meet those parameters, so on and so forth. Part
of that is taking into account the so-called trade-off
principle, the ability to trade off range and payload. Part of
it, as you know, is to take into account the potential for the
item to be modified.
As with all decisions in the MTCR, as noted in the MTCR
guidelines themselves, it is ultimately the sovereign national
decision of the exporting country and so it is a national
responsibility of each MTCR partner to implement these various
provisions. For our part, we subject applications to export
UAVs to very intensive technical analysis, usually working with
the companies involved to make sure we understand the
configuration of the system, just what its inherent capability
it is, how modifiable we believe it to be, and we combine that
with the judgments of the intelligence community in terms of
what the intentions and capabilities of the recipient might be
in terms of modification.
Overall, it is certainly my impression that the regime
partners have been very responsible in their exports, certainly
of Category I items, and I think the adding of smaller Category
II UAVs to control starting in 1994 has had a positive impact
on the responsible nature of the decisions, as well. I am not
in a position to know whether the number of approvals has gone
up or down as a result of the 1993 and 1994 decisions, but it
is my sense that, by and large, the regime members have been
acting responsibly.
Senator Akaka. Before I defer to Senator Cochran, in 1994,
the Defense Science Board stated that it will be very difficult
for the intelligence community to provide timely estimates of
cruise missile and UAV threats. What has been done since 1994
to rectify this intelligence gap? Why is there not a consensus
among our allies and MTCR partners that cruise missile exports
need tighter controls?
Mr. Van Diepen. Senator, I am not sure I am in a good
position to address what the intelligence community has been
doing, and frankly, would not know what would be appropriate to
say in an unclassified forum on that subject.
I would note, though, as I said in my statement, at least
internally, we believe the intelligence community has done a
good job of raising our awareness of the threat and helping us
come up with proposals in the MTCR for dealing better with that
threat. We have made a number of presentations over the years
in the so-called information exchange portion of MTCR plenaries
on the cruise missile threat to do our part to raise the
awareness of other countries of the issue.
I guess I do not agree with the concept that there is not a
shared understanding or shared appreciation of the cruise
missile threat in the MTCR. Now, obviously, different countries
have different national policies in terms of their own exports
of cruise missiles, just as they do with their own exports of
arms more generally. But I think that is different than saying
that somehow shows that the countries have a different
appreciation of the generic threat that is posed by cruise
missiles.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much. Senator Cochran.
Senator Cochran. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
How would you assess the effectiveness of our export
controls in helping to reduce the amount of proliferation from
missile technology, whether we are talking about ballistic
missile or cruise missile technology?
Mr. Van Diepen. Well, first of all, in terms of the United
States, I think our export controls, both the multilateral MTCR
controls and our national controls, like our catch-all
controls, have been substantially effective in more or less
walling the United States off as a source of controlled
technology for use in cruise missile programs.
Now, obviously, there are other sources of technology,
including sources in places like China that are not members of
the MTCR, and so our national controls have a limited utility
in dealing with that avenue. But the most technology, the best
technology is in the United States, is in Western Europe, is in
Japan, and the MTCR export controls have gone a long way toward
making it very difficult for proliferators to get technology
from those places, and so they have had to resort to very
intricate, expensive, time-consuming covert acquisition. They
have had to settle for the kinds of technology they can get
from places like North Korea and China.
So while we have not stopped the proliferation problem,
what we have done is impeded those programs, make them cost
more, make them take longer, and make the missiles that these
guys are able to ultimately come up with less threatening than
would be the case if we were not applying these
nonproliferation measures.
Senator Cochran. There has been a good deal of effort by
our administration in conversations with the Russians and the
Chinese to try to get a higher degree of cooperation in this
proliferation reduction area, specifically with ballistic
missile parts and technologies and the like. Have we extended
that to the cruise missile area with respect to China and
Russia? Have we tried to use the same kind of influence in
keeping down their exporting and transferring technologies and
components?
Mr. Van Diepen. I guess a fair answer is yes and no, in a
sense that much of our dialogue with both of those countries is
more generic. It is not focused on ballistic missile versus
cruise missile proliferation. It is focused on missile
proliferation, on meeting MTCR requirements, which covers both
ballistic and cruise. But there has been relatively little
direct engagement on the question of cruise, I think in part
because we see it as subsumed in this larger question.
Senator Cochran. Why have more nations not elected to
develop or obtain cruise missiles? When we note the comparison
between the 9 nations that are said to have cruise missile
capabilities and 35 nations that have ballistic missile
capabilities, why the big disparity there, do you think?
Mr. Van Diepen. By definition, any answer has to be
speculative. I would like to say it was because of our
nonproliferation efforts, but I am not sure that that is a fair
answer. I think it is probably a combination of things.
I think a number of countries' military objectives are such
that the fast flight time and assured arrival, difficulty of
interception of ballistic missiles is attractive to them in
meeting those objectives. I think a number of countries see as
both a political threat and an item of political prestige big
ballistic missiles that they can parade around, and cruise
missiles do not necessarily meet that bill.
I think that, for some, what is most readily available on
the open market are North Korean Scud-based missiles. They are
available, they are relatively inexpensive, they are proven,
and so to a certain extent, it is because this is what is
readily available on the market. So I think it is probably a
combination of those things.
Now, as the Chairman noted in his statement, our
expectation is that, over time, more and more countries will
probably be interested in acquiring some sort of land attack
cruise missile or land attack UAV capability, but I think many
countries can meet a lot of their objectives in pursuing WMD
programs in the first place by using the tried and true and
relatively available ballistic missile.
Senator Cochran. Can you tell us in this open hearing
whether you know of any countries that are developing an
intercontinental capability with cruise missiles that could
attack the United States?
Mr. Van Diepen. A literal intercontinental capability in
terms of a cruise missile with a range sufficient to reach the
United States from Eurasia, I would be surprised if anybody was
working that direction right now.
There are a number of countries that are working on what we
call long-range cruise missiles, missiles with a range of 1,000
or 2,000 kilometers, and to reach the United States with
missiles like that, one would have to have some sort of forward
delivery platform, whether it was concealing them on a merchant
ship, concealing them in an aircraft, something like that. But,
of course, even these shorter-range missiles pose a direct
threat to our forward-deployed forces in places like the Middle
East and to our friends and allies abroad.
Senator Cochran. Are we fully capable of defending against
those attacks now in the case of deployed troops?
Mr. Van Diepen. I am probably not the best one to answer
that question. I mean, certainly, we have air defenses of
various sorts that would have some degree of utility against
incoming cruise missiles, but I should probably not answer that
question definitively.
Senator Cochran. Is this the same kind of threat that we
saw used in the war between Argentina and Great Britain when
the Exocet missile struck a British ship?
Mr. Van Diepen. That is certainly one aspect of it. The
most widely deployed cruise missiles right now are, in fact,
not land attack missiles but anti-ship missiles, and a lot of
the attributes that make those missiles interesting as anti-
ship missiles also make them potentially interesting as land
attack means.
They are relatively small. They are hard to detect. They
are hard to shoot down. They can be very accurate, accurate
enough to hit a ship. With the appropriate other type of
guidance system, they could be very accurate against specific
land targets. That could begin to make it more feasible to use
these things in militarily effective ways with conventional
payloads.
Right now, with the ballistic missiles that are out there,
most of them pretty much--all that they are good for, the ones
in the hands of proliferating countries, are delivery with WMD,
and while that is obviously a major threat, if a proliferant
also had a capability to hit what he was shooting at with
conventional ordinance, that would expand the types of threats
that our forces would face and land attack cruise missiles
offer that potential.
Senator Cochran. Your testimony has been quite helpful and
interesting and we appreciate very much your being here today
and helping us understand this threat.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much.
You said that Predator exports would be fixed so that it
cannot be armed. If that is so, how do you do that?
Mr. Van Diepen. I think it probably would not be
appropriate for me to comment on any specific type of American
UAV system because I do not want to get into any sort of
commercial confidentiality or proprietary information issues,
but as a general matter, you would look at the aerodynamics of
the system, its internal configuration, the center of gravity,
and you would look at are there ways of mounting additional
weight, for example, under the wings and could you find ways of
making that more difficult to do.
Not having hard points already installed on the wings of
the cruise missile, for example, would make it more difficult
to put weapons underneath. If you knew that putting additional
weight on those places would disrupt the center of gravity of
the missile and make it more difficult to fly, you would have
some confidence that it could not be armed in that way. Finding
various ways of sealing in or having a tamper-evident
capability on the removal of the non-weapons payload that the
missile or the UAV was issued.
So there are a number of techniques that one could use, but
it is highly dependent on the specific design of the specific
UAV and you really have to look at these things in detail, case
by case.
Senator Akaka. In your testimony, you mentioned delivery
services. You think that UAVs are ideally suited for the
delivery of chemical and biological weapons. Nations exporting
UAVs and cruise missiles capable of carrying smaller payloads,
such as a biological or chemical weapon, are limited by the
MTCR if the system's intended use is to carry weapons of mass
destruction.
Has the United States been asked by exporting nations to
provide assistance either through intelligence or through
guidance to determine the intent of potential UAV buyers?
Mr. Van Diepen. Not in as direct a way as your question
implies. When we agreed in the MTCR back in 1993-1994 to put
these new controls on, part of the package is that there is an
agreement to have enhanced information sharing to help other
members apply these various controls.
And so for our part, since that time, we have been
providing enhanced information on the identity and status of
the WMD programs in countries that are also interested in
acquiring missiles and UAVs so that, for example, licensing
officers in another MTCR country can have that kind of
crosswalk. They can know that this country or this end user is
also involved in WMD and so they can make that link-up between
the potential risk that the UAV in question would be diverted
for WMDs.
Then in addition, most of the countries that are in the
MTCR are also members of the Australia Group, the chemical-
biological regime, and the Nuclear Suppliers Group, and so they
have access there to information on the WMD side of the WMD-UAV
interrelationship.
Senator Akaka. There have been concerns expressed about UAV
exports. The administration has proposed expanding UAV exports
to non-NATO allies on a case-by-case basis. Does the
administration think we need looser restrictions on UAV
exports?
Mr. Van Diepen. Certainly not at this time, Senator. What
we have done, and I cannot get into the details because they
are classified, but the MTCR guidelines make clear that exports
of Category I items are subject to a strong presumption of
denial. As is clear in the guidelines themselves, that means
that such items theoretically can be sold, but only on rare
occasions, and that is the language used in the guidelines,
rare occasions that are particularly well justified in terms of
five specific nonproliferation and export control factors.
What the Executive Branch has done is come up with an
internal definition of what would warrant being a rare occasion
under which a Category I UAV could be sold, at least for the
MTCR part of the equation. Now, assuming a decision was made
that it was possible in a particular case to overcome the
strong presumption of denial, at that point, the export would
be handled just like any other arms export and all the myriad
considerations that would go into whether or not ultimately to
make that export would pertain.
So this is really coming up with an agreed way of answering
that very first question that one has to answer in the case of
a Category I UAV. Is it or is it not going to be able to
overcome the strong presumption of denial? We now have an
agreed internal definition as to when the answer to that
question is yes. Now, when the answer to that question is yes,
that does not mean, OK, it is rolling out the door. That means
at that point, then, it is subject to all the other
considerations that any arms sale is subject to in ultimately
determining whether or not it will take place.
Senator Akaka. Before I defer to Senator Cochran for any
second round questions, as you know, Mr. Van Diepen, cruise
missiles can be easily modified to expand their range or
payload. Beyond MTCR limits, the resale of cruise missiles is
not well regulated. These are serious problems. Could these
issues be addressed through an inspection regime? How does the
United States verify that our missile exports are not resold
after delivery or modified to violate the MTCR?
Mr. Van Diepen. Well, first of all, the extent to which a
missile that is below the Category I threshold could be
modified to exceed the Category I threshold again depends very
much on the nature of the missile in question. Some have that
potential. Others clearly do not, and so it would be a case-by-
case situation.
Because these are munitions, their sales would be subject
to all the standard conditions of any munitions sale, including
a commitment from the recipient government that the item not be
re-transferred without U.S. permission. In addition, we have
the so-called Blue Lantern program, where there are periodic
checks made, both on a random basis and on a targeted basis
determined by intelligence, to actually go from time to time to
places and look at the items in question and make sure that
they are where they are supposed to be and see what is
happening with them.
Usually also, if it is a U.S. munition that is being
provided, there is almost always some degree of spare parts
support or servicing or other activities that would go on and
those activities would provide a source of information, again,
as to whether or not the item is where it is supposed to be and
whether or not someone has played around with the item.
Senator Akaka. Senator Cochran.
Senator Cochran. Mr. Chairman, I have no other questions. I
appreciate very much your help to us in this hearing.
Mr. Van Diepen. Thank you.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Mr. Van Diepen, for
your testimony and for your time this morning. The Members of
the Subcommittee may submit questions in writing for you and we
would appreciate a timely response to any of those questions.
We will now proceed to the second panel, so thank you very
much again.
Mr. Van Diepen. Thank you.
Senator Akaka. I would like to call Christopher Bolkcom and
Dennis Gormley to take their places at the witness table. Mr.
Bolkcom is an analyst in the Defense and Trade Division of the
Congressional Research Service. Mr. Gormley is President of
Blue Ridge Consulting and a senior fellow at the International
Institute for Strategic Studies in London.
You have been asked to discuss the features that make
cruise missiles and UAVs attractive weapons for nations of
concern or terrorist groups, how aggressively they are pursuing
cruise missiles, the threat these systems pose to the United
States, and how well the MTCR is addressing cruise missile
proliferation concerns. Your full testimony will be submitted
into the record and I look forward to hearing your statements.
Mr. Bolkcom, you may give your statement now.
TESTIMONY OF CHRISTOPHER BOLKCOM,\1\ ANALYST IN NATIONAL
DEFENSE, FOREIGN AFFAIRS, DEFENSE, AND TRADE DIVISION,
CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE
Mr. Bolkcom. Thank you, Senator. Mr. Chairman, Senator
Cochran, thank you for inviting me to speak today about cruise
missile proliferation. I have submitted my testimony, as you
mentioned, and I would like to take a moment just to emphasize
three key points that you will find in that testimony.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Bolkcom appears in the Appendix
on page 28.
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First, I would like to make a few observations about
today's cruise missile threat. Over 80 countries today own
cruise missiles of some kind and 18 of these countries
manufacture cruise missiles domestically. The most advanced
cruise missiles, those with the longest ranges, the heaviest
payloads, the highest degrees of accuracy, stealthy features,
these tend to be in the hands of our allies and friendly
countries.
Our adversaries, countries like Iran, Iraq, Libya--these
countries tend to operate anti-ship cruise missiles, although
they are fielding and developing land attack cruise missiles,
as well. These tend to be of theater range, tens to hundreds of
miles, typically armed with conventional high-explosive
warheads and capable of attacking known and fixed targets, such
as ports, airfields, and cities.
Today's cruise missiles appear to be most threatening to
our allies and friendly countries and to forward deployed U.S.
military forces, especially the Navy, which must deal with the
threat of sea skimming anti-ship cruise missiles.
A cruise missile attack on the continental United States
today, however, is technically possible. The intelligence
community has testified, however, that they do not believe such
an attack is likely. They argue that terrorists do not need
cruise missiles because they already have access to a variety
of weapons and methods that they find very effective, such as
truck bombs, letter bombs, suicide bombers, hijacking airplanes
and cruise ships, and using firearms to kill people. Yet, it
cannot be ignored that cruise missiles do have many attributes
that could make them attractive to terrorists who may acquire
them and use them in ways that we currently cannot foresee.
My second point is that a key aspect of cruise missile
proliferation is that it is highly unpredictable and the
current threat could change very rapidly. Cruise missile
threats can emerge quickly because manufacturers do not have to
start from scratch. Instead, manufacturers can exploit existing
platforms. Manned aircraft have been turned into cruise
missiles. UAVs, or unmanned aerial vehicles, have been turned
into cruise missiles. And anti-ship cruise missiles have been
modified to attack targets on the land.
As I mentioned a moment ago, of the 80 cruise missile
countries today, 18 of them manufactured their own
domestically. However, 22 other of these countries appear to
have the industrial and technological infrastructures that are
required to make cruise missiles if these countries decided to
pursue those sort of programs. The status of these threshold
manufacturers could have a significant effect on the global
supply, demand, and inventory of cruise missiles.
As Senator Akaka mentioned a moment ago, the Defense
Science Board, which is DOD's premier body of technical
advisors, has pointed out and recognized the inherent
unpredictability of cruise missile proliferation. As Senator
Cochran mentioned, they have written that the cruise missile
threat can be expected to evolve both in function and severity.
The threat could evolve rapidly and it would be very difficult
for the intelligence community to provide timely estimates of
cruise missile threats.
So why is the proliferation of cruise missiles so difficult
to monitor and predict? Well, the answer lies in my third and
final point, and that is that most cruise missile technologies
are inherently dual use. Most cruise missiles exploit well
understood and well established technologies that are found
throughout the civil aviation industrial base. Missile
airframes, navigation systems, jet engines, satellite maps,
mission planning, computers and software all can be found on
the commercial market. Thus, identifying a military program can
be difficult because the technology hides in plain sight.
Also, the commercial nature of cruise missile technologies
keeps the costs of these weapons systems low and makes them
accessible to a wide range of nations and potentially non-state
actors.
The commercial availability of cruise missile technologies
may be the biggest obstacle to controlling the spread of these
systems through export controls alone. Many argue that there is
currently a civil aviation loophole in the Missile Technology
Control Regime that allows technologies applicable to cruise
missiles to slip through that agreement.
Also, industry groups remind us that the legitimate export
of military and civil aviation products is big business and
these industry groups are arguing for the liberalization and
streamlining of export controls, not for stricter rules.
So recognizing these challenges and in conclusion, I would
like to point out that successfully dealing with cruise missile
proliferation will likely require a multi-faceted strategy.
Such a strategy could include steps such as attempting to
reduce the supply of cruise missiles by negotiating more robust
export controls, attempting to reduce the demand of cruise
missiles with disincentives to potential importers, and
improving our military capabilities, such as improving our
theater air defenses and potentially continental United States
air defenses and our counterforce targeting capabilities.
So, Mr. Chairman, Senator Cochran, this concludes my verbal
testimony. I look forward to any questions you may have.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much. Mr. Gormley, you may
proceed with your testimony.
TESTIMONY OF DENNIS GORMLEY,\1\ SENIOR FELLOW, INTERNATIONAL
INSTITUTE FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES
Mr. Gormley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, Senator
Cochran, it is a pleasure to appear before you once again, this
time to offer my suggestions on ways to deal with the emerging
threat of cruise missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles as they
could affect U.S. interests abroad as well as at home.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Gormley appears in the Appendix
on page 59.
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This issue has only just begun to emerge and attract the
kind of scrutiny it so desperately deserves. In part, this is
because the terrible events of September 11 have reminded us of
the dangers of focusing obsessively on a narrow range of
familiar threats at the expense of perhaps more likely ones.
Land attack cruise missiles and UAVs have yet to spread
widely. However, CIA Director Tenet has testified that by 2010,
land attack cruise missiles could pose a serious threat not
only to deployed forces, but possibly also to the U.S.
homeland. As America successfully pursues effective theater and
national ballistic missile defenses, nations and terrorist
groups will be even more strongly motivated to pursue cruise
missiles. For example, the low cost of small airplanes modified
to become autonomous vehicles, and other propeller-driven and
UAVs make the cost-per-kill arithmetic for missile defenses
generally very stark. Simply put, large numbers of low-cost
cruise missiles could overwhelm the best of defenses.
The emergence of the cruise missile threat confronts
American military forces with enormous challenges. Some
existing air defenses have substantial capability against large
land attack cruise missiles flying relatively high flight
profiles. But once cruise missiles fly low, or worse, add
stealth features or employ countermeasures, severe difficulties
arise. Indeed, even defending against easily observable cruise
missiles flying relatively high is challenging and that is
because air defenses could mistake them for friendly aircraft
returning to their air bases and shoot them inadvertently down.
Large numbers of weapons-carrying UAVs or converted kit
airplanes flying at very low speeds also threaten current air
defenses which were designed to detect high performance and
fast flying Soviet aircraft. Sophisticated look-down radars
eliminate slow moving targets on or near the ground in order to
prevent their data processing and display systems from being
overly taxed. Thus, propeller-driven UAVs flying at speeds
under 80 knots would be ignored as potential targets.
Cruise missiles are also attractive alternatives for states
or terrorist groups lacking the resources or technical skills
to build or deploy intercontinental ballistic missiles. Various
national intelligence estimates have drawn attention to the
conversion potential and use on a commercial container ship, of
which there are thousands in the international fleet, as a
launch platform. Such a ship-launched cruise missile could be
positioned just outside territorial waters to strike virtually
any important capital or large industrial area, and this could
occur anywhere around the globe.
While the latest NIE draws attention to this among several
attack options, equally worrisome, in my view, is the
conversion of small manned airplanes into weapons carrying,
autonomously flown attack vehicles. Terrorists' use of large
commercial airliners on September 11 came as a complete shock
to American planners. While small aircraft cannot begin to
approach the carrying capacity of a jumbo jet's 60 tons of
fuel, the mere fact that gasoline when mixed with air releases
15 times as much energy as an equal weight of TNT suggests that
small aircraft can do significant damage to certain civilian
and industrial targets. Such an autonomous delivery system in
the hands of a domestic terrorist threat means that launches
could take place from hidden locations in close proximity to
their intended targets.
What should one make of the effect of nonproliferation
policy in stopping or slowing the evolution of the cruise
missile threat? The existing MTCR provisions are surely in need
of revision to cope more effectively with cruise missiles and
UAVs. The regime's provisions have simply not kept pace with
the rapid expansion in commercially available technology
facilitated by today's globalized economy. The matter of small
aerospace companies being formed to provide fully integrated
flight management systems to enable the transformation of
manned aircraft into entirely autonomous UAVs is only the most
egregious example.
I outlined five specific reforms in my prepared statement
for my February 12 appearance before you. None of these is
conceivable without a determined U.S. effort to work closely
with the founding G-7 partners of the Missile Technology
Control Regime. This core group must convince the broad MTCR
membership of the necessity of enhanced controls.
During the Cold War, arms control and military deployments
played complementary roles in maintaining nuclear stability.
Today, the two policy domains still have mutually reinforcing
roles to play. Absent amending of the MTCR, cruise missile
threats are certain to spread and inevitably make missile
defenses more expensive and problematic. But if the MTCR can
become as effective in limiting the spread of cruise missiles
as it has with more advanced ballistic missiles, missile
defenses can conceivably keep pace with evolutionary
improvements in both missile categories. This will not happen
without the committed leadership of both the Congress and the
Executive Branches. Thank you.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Mr. Gormley.
We have some questions for both of you. Mr. Bolkcom, first,
let me thank you for the map you provided in your testimony of
estimated global cruise missile capabilities around the world.
Thank you for that. Your map separates countries into
indigenous manufacturers, threshold manufacturers, and
operators. What separates an indigenous capability from a
threshold manufacturer? Is it critical technology,
infrastructure, training, money, or something else?
Mr. Bolkcom. Thank you, Senator. That is a very good
question. If you look at the 18 countries today who are
manufacturers, their technological and industrial
infrastructures are not that different than many of the
threshold manufacturers, which is exactly my point. The
technology, the capabilities, the knowledge required to
manufacture cruise missiles are spread throughout the globe,
frankly, and I believe the main difference between being a
manufacturer and a threshold manufacturer is desire.
I think that many of the threshold manufacturers could
manufacture cruise missiles quite soon, today, perhaps. In
fact, Argentina is one example, but for various reasons, as Mr.
Van Diepen said, their efforts may have been focused elsewhere.
But I think it is simply a matter of desire and focus.
Senator Akaka. Mr. Gormley, as indicated in your testimony,
the draft International Code of Conduct on Ballistic Missiles
does not include cruise missiles. How could the draft document
be amended to include cruise missiles? For example, would it be
useful for member states to declare their cruise missile and
UAV stockpiles?
Mr. Gormley. Senator, I think, first of all, the absence of
cruise missiles from the draft Code of Conduct just simply
reinforces the lack of consensus with respect to what the most
worrisome threats are, in my view. To amend the existing Code
of Conduct, and that would assume on my part that I agree that
it is an important document to establish norms, which I think
is another question, but assuming that it was worthwhile to
pursue this Code of Conduct, the addition of cruise missiles
and UAVs would be a simple language change.
In fact, I was at an International Missile Conference in
Southampton, England, 2\1/2\ weeks ago in which many of the
non-U.S. MTCR members were present and this issue of addressing
the cruise missile and UAV issue in the Ballistic Missile Code
of Conduct came up. The general approach is to encourage not
only MTCR member states who are part of the roughly 80 nations
who attended the meeting in Paris, but all participating
states, to submit suggested changes to the Code of Conduct. So
that it seems to me appropriate for at least several of those
states to include recommended changes in the language to
address cruise missiles.
In my view, this will not happen for reasons that I simply
cannot really come to grips with. But it strikes me that the
focus is on ballistic missiles. There has been an intentional
decision not to include language addressing cruise missiles and
UAVs and I am not aware of what state or states what might be
behind the effort not to include that language in the Code of
Conduct, but I think it is shameful.
Senator Akaka. This question is for both of you. The United
States has asked the manufacturer of the Predator UAV to
develop a version for export to non-NATO allies that cannot be
armed or modified to exceed MTCR guidelines. Is this a
realistic request? Is it possible to construct a UAV so that it
can never be modified to carry a weapon? Mr. Gormley or Mr.
Bolkcom?
Mr. Gormley. I will start, Mr. Chairman. I think Mr. Van
Diepen addressed the issue of the difficulty and I think the
major issue that he pointed out that struck me as particularly
relevant is every missile that is transferred has to be dealt
with on a case-by-case basis because every missile is
fundamentally unique from an engineering standpoint.
That said, I would also argue that it is technically
difficult to make these kind of changes. There are particular
safeguards that one could employ, even the notion of trap
doors, devices that the recipient is simply not aware of, all
of which raise difficult issues in the negotiation to purchase
these missiles because, obviously, the recipient nation does
not want anything that might inhibit its potential use, even to
include modifying it in violation of whatever end use
assurances we might place on that subsequent modification.
But there is a larger issue that I think is important
because this issue came up in what has been the most
embarrassing cruise missile transfer, that is a stealthy cruise
missile, the Apache or Black Shahine. That was a decision made
by both the French and the U.K. governments to transfer what is
decidedly a Category I missile, but also a stealthy one,
raising other concerns about the potential defense against such
a missile. They decided to do it nonetheless and they brought
up this issue of applying safeguards.
But the issue is one that becomes difficult in terms of
establishing a precedent. Once you establish a precedent that
you can come up with all these fixes, then it creates a major
incentive on the part of other MTCR members to practice the
same behavior, to come up with these technical fixes that allow
for these transfers to occur, and that is the ultimate problem
that I think the case of the Black Shahine transfer to the UAE
creates. That is, it creates an incentive for Russia, and,
indeed, MTCR adherent states like China, to make decisions that
might be inconsistent with the wishes of all the MTCR member
states.
Senator Akaka. Would you want to comment on that, Mr.
Bolkcom?
Mr. Bolkcom. Yes, sir. I agree with Mr. Gormley. It really
needs to be looked at on a case-by-case basis, how feasible is
it to change a missile or a UAV so that it cannot be tampered
with. But generally speaking, I think that, yes, I think that
one can envision for most cruise missiles and UAVs a means or
methods of making them tamper-resistant. The question is, would
the customer want it? Would you have to go to such a degree
that the missile would be so dumbed-down that it would not
offer them the sort of capabilities they want? And the answer
is, probably.
I also agree with Mr. Gormley that there is a larger issue
with the Predator's sale or those sorts of sales and the norms
they establish, and the issue for me is one of U.S.
credibility. We have talked a lot about export controls and
supply side efforts to quarantine the spread of this
technology, but we need to recognize that there is a flip side
to that coin and that is reducing the desire of importers to
try to give them disincentives.
In countries like China, Russia, France, they look at us
and I think they can oftentimes say that we are inconsistent or
we are talking out of both sides of our mouths when we, the
United States, are a large exporter of cruise missiles. The
Harpoon, for instance, is a very successful export product.
And, of course, the United States is one of the leading users
of UAVs and cruise missiles.
So when we think about what we want to do in terms of
export controls and stopping the spread, we also have to look
at how others may perceive us and our exports.
Senator Akaka. Let me ask you, Mr. Bolkcom, whether you
agree with this assessment: The National Intelligence Estimate
on Future Missile Threats estimated that one or two dozen
countries will possess a land attack cruise missile capability
by the year 2015 via indigenous development, acquisition, or
modification of other systems, such as anti-ship cruise
missiles or UAVs. Do you agree with this assessment? What are
the most important factors affecting cruise missile
acquisition?
Mr. Bolkcom. Well, sir, the intelligence community
certainly has a lot of resources that I do not have access to
and I tried to focus on capabilities. I have looked at the
paths through which countries have historically acquired cruise
missiles and just focused on those sort of capabilities. So in
terms of intent or countries' desires, I cannot really say. But
looking at the capabilities that I see today, I think that sort
of estimate is entirely plausible. It is entirely plausible.
Senator Akaka. Mr. Bolkcom, the last National Intelligence
Estimate on Future Missile Threats does not include UAVs.
During our hearing on the subject in March, National
Intelligence Officer Robert Walpole told this panel that UAVs
will be included in future threat assessments. In your
testimony, you described in detail the challenges of assessing
UAV capabilities. Do you believe that a threat assessment can
be done?
Mr. Bolkcom. Sir, I do not know enough about threat
assessments to know if they are feasible on UAVs, but I can
tell you that other experts have made recommendations for how
to improve our capabilities in forecasting and providing good
intelligence. I do not know if these sort of recommendations
have been acted upon, but I will share one with you.
The Defense Science Board, which you mentioned, and a body
with which I am familiar, recommended 8 years ago that the
intelligence community should not only put a higher emphasis on
cruise missile and UAV proliferation, but they made
recommendations on how they should put a greater emphasis on
this problem and one approach they recommended was what they
call a ``skunk's work'' or ``red teaming'' approach.
This approach is one where if you are unsure if a country
has the ability to manufacture UAVs or cruise missiles or
weaponize them, what you do is you take a bunch of people,
oftentimes military officers with the sort of expertise you
find in the country in question: Engineering, aeronautical
engineering, computer science, and what not, and you isolate
these people with the sort of technologies and processes you
believe that country possesses and see what they can do. It is
called a red team or a skunk's work approach. It is a very
effective way of finding out empirically whether these sort of
capabilities could be kluged into a cruise missile or UAV.
To my knowledge, the intelligence community has not taken
on this approach. That does not mean they have not, but I do
not know of any such efforts.
Senator Akaka. Mr. Gormley, would you want to comment?
Mr. Gormley. Yes, I would, Chairman. On the 12 to 24
nations by 2015, that is really, I mean, it is like hoping that
you can pull a rabbit out of a hat and be relatively close and
that is, I trust, a product of, I would hope, rigorous threat
assessment and looking at where capacities exist.
I would only footnote it by saying that given the
pronounced effectiveness and thereby the interest that is
driven by it in Predator's use in Afghanistan as a weapons
delivery platform, it strikes me that the 40 nations that now
produce UAVs, half of which are not MTCR members, might be
inclined to put a weapon on their existing UAVs. This isn't
easy, but by 2015, it would seem to me that the potential for
that is certainly there.
We have looked very systematically in a study sponsored by
the government at a body of about just under 700 UAVs produced
by a large number of countries and found that 80 percent of
them, nearly 80 percent of them, were capable of meeting the
Category II provisions of the MTCR. That is, they could fly
with a small payload out to and beyond 300 kilometers. In fact,
roughly about 20 percent of them could fly as far as 1,000
kilometers. So there is significant capability in today's UAV
infrastructure.
All that said, you asked a question about factors affecting
the acquisition of cruise missiles and UAVs. I would add a
cautionary note. There is a tendency to just look at the
technology and look at popular interest in these weapons
platforms, but if you look at a country like Iran and examine
where it spends its resources, it is still buying tanks,
planes, and ships. So it raises the question of how much can
they afford and how do they trade off decisions to buy cruise
missiles for land attack missions versus ballistic missiles in
the context of limited resources when they still intend to
flesh out a conventional army with tanks, ships, and airplanes.
So it is a difficult proposition to think out to 2015. Just
in terms of technology, you can come up with some relatively
straightforward answers, but you have to set it in a broader,
richer context before you can make careful predictions on the
future.
Senator Akaka. Mr. Gormley, the Missile Technology Control
Regime demonstrates how cruise missiles are often an
afterthought to ballistic missiles. But are cruise missile
performance and technology sufficiently different from
ballistic missiles to warrant a new international agreement
solely for cruise missiles and UAVs?
Mr. Gormley. No. The answer is definitely not. I am a very
strong adherent of not allowing the best to become the enemy of
the good.
Many people in various positions, high and low, criticize
the Missile Technology Control Regime for not being an adequate
tool in stemming the spread of missiles generally, ballistic
and cruise. I would look at the glass as half filled and
suggest that with modest changes and reforms to the MTCR, we
can do a reasonably good job at stemming the tide of the most
sophisticated cruise missiles and UAVs getting into the hands
of our potential adversaries.
The concern I have about a new regime of any sort is the
time it takes to reach a consensus among the nations that would
participate in it, and if nations take their eye off the prize,
which now is reform, to bring the MTCR up to the capacity to
deal more effectively with cruise missiles and UAVs, then I
think they take their eyes off that prize at the risk of
allowing the continuing globalization of dual-use technologies
to create the condition for cruise missile and UAV
proliferation. So they ought to focus on the existing
mechanism, reform it as best they can, and move out strongly to
cope with the emergence of this threat.
Senator Akaka. Thank you.
Mr. Bolkcom, in your testimony, you discuss the difficulty
of identifying and distinguishing between cruise missiles and
legitimate small aircraft. How effective would an advanced and
universal combat identification system be for improving the
rapid and accurate distinction between the two?
Mr. Bolkcom. Sir, from a defense perspective, it is
identifying what that blip on the radar screen is very
important. We have very high standards in terms of trying to
avoid friendly fire, trying not to shoot down our allies or
non-combatants, and that sort of high standard can work against
us in terms of cruise missile defense.
In terms of a specific answer to your question about
improved or universal IFF systems, I have not thought about
that specific solution much, but I would point out that there
are some technologies that are coming online that will be very
helpful, like Link-16, which is a secure, jam-resistant
communications link that not only the United States but our
NATO allies will also use, and that is not an IFF system in and
of itself, but it will help provide an IFF function that should
be very helpful in identifying friend from foe from neutral on
the battlefield.
Senator Akaka. Mr. Gormley, do you believe such a system
would be acceptable to MTCR?
Mr. Gormley. I think we may be talking about two separate
issues: Identification friend/foe in a military context, and
some mechanism that would be used in an export control context.
The former that Mr. Bolkcom responded to is the requirement
to have some way of distinguishing friendly from enemy assets
on your air defense radars and that is an exceptionally
difficult technical challenge. We have been trying to cope with
that in a variety of different ways.
Ultimately, the best solution is to have high-quality
radars that provide you not only with the ability to detect an
incoming object at long range, but high-quality fire control
quality data that gives you the confidence that you can fire on
something because you understand it to be a non-friendly asset.
That is a technology issue that I know the U.S. Department of
Defense is working on, but a very difficult challenge, indeed.
If I understand your question to apply to an export control
regime, that would almost suggest something along the lines of
a safeguards regime that would essentially allow you to
distinguish whether a transferred missile is being used in ways
inconsistent with the end use assurances that you have
negotiated with the recipient nation. And as I mentioned
before, end use safeguards can be very technically
sophisticated and that in and of itself makes them problematic
because every member of the MTCR does not have an equal level
of technology to build into their transfers that might occur.
So does that imply that the United States and the other
lead industrial G-7 nations would provide safeguards technology
to all the other non-G-7 members of the MTCR? I think that
would raise an export control issue in and of itself. So I
think it is very difficult to imagine a regime that would work
in a robust way.
Senator Akaka. I want to thank both of you and all
witnesses for your testimony and the time that you took to be
here. The United States will unilaterally withdraw from the
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2 days. In our race to field a
missile defense system, we should heed the lessons of ballistic
missiles. Short- and medium-range ballistic missiles are
widespread and already pose a significant threat overseas to
U.S. interests, military forces, and our allies. Cruise
missiles are far fewer in number and our potential adversaries
are said to own cruise missiles that are easy to track and have
low accuracy. But this can change rapidly, especially with
foreign assistance.
We must not lose this opportunity to stop the spread of
cruise missiles. It will always be more effective to prevent a
state from acquiring cruise missiles than to build a system to
defend against them.
It is clear that the administration recognizes the
advantages that cruise missiles and UAVs give us in military
operations. Since the beginning of Operation Enduring Freedom,
I have seen one press report after another describing the new
and improved uses for UAVs. In fact, the Air Force plans to
spend about $1.5 billion to speed the initial operational
capability of combat UAVs over the next 5 years.
However, as we broaden our uses of UAVs, we must assume
that our adversaries are planning to do the same. The United
States should set an example. We should not rush into easing
restrictions on UAV sales to non-NATO members. We need to
ensure that we have an end user verification system that can
track where this technology goes and who has access to it once
it leaves U.S. borders.
The administration should put pressure on our MTCR partners
to abide by the guidelines on cruise missile exports. The
administration needs to lead the debate on how the MTCR will
address UAVs so that an agreement can be reached. We must not
forget and we must not let our allies forget that once
released, technological genies cannot be returned to their
bottles.
Gentlemen, we have no further questions at this time.
However, the record will remain open for questions for our
witnesses and for further statements from our colleagues. We
appreciate the timely response to any questions that are sent
to you.
I would like to express my appreciation to all our
witnesses for their time and for sharing their insights with
us. Thank you again very much.
The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:22 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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