Missile Defense Briefing Report: No. 213

A STRAGGLER IN THE PSI
An unlikely nation is throwing a wrench in the Bush administration's plans for aggressive counterproliferation against North Korea. During his mid-November visit to Asia, President Bush met with South Korean president Rho Moo-hyun in Hanoi, Vietnam. But the Associated Press (November 18) reports that, despite entreaties from the American president, the South Korean leader has refused to “take part in the full scope” of the activities of the Proliferation Security Initiative, or PSI. Rho’s refusal puts a crimp in Administration’s efforts to expand maritime interdictions of vessels engaged in trade with the regime of Kim Jong-il in North Korea.

JITTERS OVER CHINA’S SPACE AMBITIONS
China’s growing interest in space is raising alarm among U.S. officials, the Christian Science Monitor (November 20) reports. According to the paper, most experts now believe that China has tacitly accepted that space will be the “final frontier in the theater of war” — a view given credence by China’s “blinding” of a U.S. reconnaissance satellite with a ground-based laser back in September. Now, a new “incident,” as yet unidentified, reportedly has the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence “very concerned.” According to the Monitor, however, speculation abounds that the source of the alarm is the KT-2, a new solid-fuel rocket potentially “capable of launching minisatellites aimed at disabling US satellites,” and the technology of which could be used in the development of three-stage, anti-satellite rockets mounted on a jet fighter.

ROMANIA TAKES ITSELF OFF THE TABLE
Officially, the Bush administration’s search for a European basing location for missile defense may still be underway, but at least one nation has already taken itself out of active contention. According to Romanian president Traian Basescu, despite a planned expansion of defense ties with Washington, Bucharest has no intention of participating in the emerging American anti-missile shield. "In no circumstances will the American territory be defended with anti-missile systems deployed in Romania," the Interfax news agency reports Basescu as telling reporters in Moscow on November 17th, while on a state visit there.

PALESTINIAN MISSILE THREAT EXPANDS...
Tel Aviv’s Yediot Ahronot newspaper (November 28) is reporting that the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the radical armed militia of the PLO’s Fatah party, has added a new short-range rocket to its arsenal. The “Jund Allah 1” reportedly was showcased in the group’s most recent public demonstration against the tenuous peace treaty just established between Israel and the Palestinian Authority’s Hamas-dominated government. Hamas, meanwhile, is also hard at work on its strategic capabilities. The terrorist group-turned-government is working to upgrade its missiles to make them “more accurate and effective,” Yediot Ahronot (November 20) reports a spokesman for the group’s paramilitary force, the Qassam Brigades, as saying.

...PROMPTING A NEW FOCUS ON TECHNOLOGY IN ISRAEL
Ha’aretz (November 29) reports that Israel is monitoring the progress of the “Skyshield” air defense system being developed by Lockheed Martin as a potential answer to the difficulties posed by the crude Qassam and Katyusha short-range rockets favored by Palestinian militants. A “gun-based air defense system,” the “Skyshield” is mounted on helicopters and low-flying aircraft which “uses bursting rounds that explode in proximity of the target”. Although the Katyushas and Qassams have yet to be intercepted in-flight, early testing has seen the rockets successfully penetrated by the Skyshield’s Tungsten rounds. Lockheed expects the $15 million system will be deliverable by early next year, and that it will be effective against mortars and artillery shells as well.

U.S.-JAPANESE COOPERATION GATHERS MOMENTUM
Japan’s Defense Agency is eyeing a site in the Nagasaki Prefecture for a planned joint Japanese-American facility for the inspection and maintenance of the Standard Missile-3 interceptor. Japan Today (December 4) reports that the facility – the first of its kind – is expected to complement the expanding joint-information network being developed by the U.S. and Japan as part of work between the two countries on a fully-operational ballistic missile defense architecture for the island nation.