Missile Defense Briefing Report: No. 243

DEFENDING U.S. SPACE ASSETS
Growing worries about threats to deployed assets in space is leading the United States military to focus on a space protection strategy. Defense News (May 19) reports that the U.S. Air Force’s Space Command, together with the National Reconnaissance Office, is preparing a strategy to identify threats to the nation's space-faring capabilities and provide recommendations on how the military can better protect them. The strategy, which is slated for completion in July, is part of a Congressional tasking to the Pentagon – encapsulated in the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act – to "place greater priority on the protection of national security space systems."

INDO-ISRAELI MISSILE DEFENSE COOPERATION ON THE SKIDS
For several years, Israel and India have been moving steadily toward an expanded strategic relationship through closer work on missile defenses. In early 2006, this effort received a major boost when India’s official Defence Research Development Organization (DRDO) and Israel’s state-controlled Israel Aircraft Industries signed a five year contract to adapt Israel’s advanced “Barak” ship defense system for use in the Indian armed forces. But now, The Hindu reports, that ambitious effort could be in jeopardy. According to the May 21st edition of the influential Indian daily, India’s Central Bureau of Investigation has opened a probe into the multi-billion dollar deal, spurred by suspicions of impropriety and corruption. The probe, the paper writes, has effectively stalled a large chunk of Indo-Israeli missile defense cooperation, at least for the time being.

CHINA'S SECRET MISSILE SITE
New commercial satellite photos have revealed what experts believe to be a massive missile base in central China. According to the Agence France Presse (May 15), the photos – available on Google Earth – show what appears to be an extensive launch facility, complete with nearly sixty launch pads for medium-range missiles, near the city of Delingha. The location has long been rumored to be a center of PRC nuclear and missile activity. But, according to Hans Christiansen of the Federation of American Scientists, "the new analysis reveals a significantly larger deployment area than previously known, different types of launch pads, command and control facilities, and missile deployment equipment." Equally significant are the apparent targets of the missiles deployed at the site. The missiles at the Delingha base are believed to be DF-21s, according to Christiansen, and "would be within range of southern Russia and northern India (including New Delhi), but not Japan, Taiwan or Guam."

WHY EUROPEAN MISSILE DEFENSE MATTERS
The Bush administration's efforts to establish missile defenses in Europe must be understood in the larger context of the West's struggle with radical regimes and extremist movements, a leading defense expert has written. "The recent Bucharest NATO summit’s endorsement of the planned deployment of European-based U.S. missile defense assets, coupled with the Czech Republic’s agreement to host a U.S. missile defense radar on its territory, must be seen as a watershed event in the history of the Western alliance, and a strong declaration of fortitude and resolve," Israeli expert Uzi Rubin outlines in a commentary article in the May 19th edition of Defense News. "The basic asymmetry between the West and the newly emerging “martyrdom” societies is not in wealth but in values. Western ethics cherish human life and abhor the targeting of uninvolved civilians. In contrast, martyrdom ethics embrace the philosophy of “no innocent bystanders” — see 9/11 — and shrug away losses among its own civilians as necessary martyrdom on the road to victory."

All of which, according to Rubin, means that regimes like that of Iran "could well be tempted to deploy long-range missiles — probably tipped with their own nuclear warheads — against the Western alliance on both continents, secure in their perception of the emptiness of any Western retaliatory posture." The Bush administration's missile defense efforts should be credited for injecting some doubt into that calculus, he concludes.

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