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Missile Nonproliferation Challenges: Assessment and Prospects for Multilateral Solutions

Dennis M. Gormley

Senior Fellow
Monterey Institute Center for Nonproliferation Studies
1111 19^th Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20036

Presented at a Seminar Sponsored by the European Union's Institute for Security Studies
"The Hague Code of Conduct against Ballistic Missile Proliferation"
Vienna International Centre
Wagramer Strasse 5
A 1400 Vienna, Austria

May 30, 2007

Ballistic missiles have dominated the missile proliferation scene thus far. They emblematized ultimate military power during the Cold War. Iraq's use of modified Scud ballistic missiles during the 1991 Gulf War mesmerized the public with lasting images of duels between Iraqi ballistic Scuds and U.S. Patriot missile defenses. Ballistic missiles based on Scud technology have spread widely to potential American adversaries and, as a potential means of WMD delivery, they not only represent significant impediments to U.S. force projection but also as a potent means of coercive diplomacy and instability in the Middle East, South Asia, and Northeast Asia.

An epidemic of cruise missile proliferation would aggravate matters gravely. Signs of a missile contagion abound. Pakistan surprised the world by test launching Tomahawk look-alike cruise missiles. India, together with Russia, is developing the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile, which will have the capability to strike targets at sea or over land to a range of 290 kilometers (km). In East Asia, China, Taiwan, and South Korea are rushing to deploy new LACMs with ranges of 1,000km or more, while Japan is contemplating the development of an LACM for "preemptive" strikes against enemy missile bases. In the Middle East, Israel was once the sole country possessing LACMs, but now Iran appears to be pursuing cruise missile programs for both land and sea attack. Iran has also provided the terrorist group Hezbollah with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and sophisticated anti-ship cruise missiles, one of which severely damaged an Israeli vessel and killed four sailors during the 2006 war in Lebanon. In April 2005, Ukraine's export agency unveiled plans to market a new LACM, called Korshun. The design of this new missile appears to be based solely on the Russian Kh-55, a nuclear-capable, 3,000km-range LACM, which Ukrainian and Russian arms dealers had illegally sold to China in 2000 and to Iran in 2001.

Indeed, several LACM development programs probably commenced in the late 1990s, but only now, more than half a decade later, has a series of seemingly small events nudged LACM growth toward a "tipping point" in missile proliferation. In helping to understand why this missile contagion is only spreading now, I'd like to briefly explore the role of three factors: specialized knowledge; narrative messages about reasons for acquiring cruise missiles; and norms of state behavior relating to nonproliferation policy and defense doctrine.

Knowledge

The most prominent argument about the spread of scientific knowledge and science-based technology is a decidedly simplistic one. By virtue of employing a universally understood methodology, scientific knowledge spreads steadily, aided by globalization and the Internet. Technology, in turn, diffuses easily and smoothly into complex systems; this reductionist view is no less popular regarding matters of weapons proliferation.

But there is an alternative view. Scholars in the field of science and technology studies argue that there are actually two kinds of knowledge at work in the construction of any complex science and technology endeavor: explicit and tacit knowledge. Whereas explicit knowledge consists of information or engineering formulations that can be recorded and passed easily from one place to another, tacit knowledge can't be written down or passed via digital media. Rather, it is acquired through the laborious and lengthy process of apprenticeship. Tacit knowledge, then, is the product of a uniquely fertile social and intellectual environment composed of mentors and protégés. Obtained as it is under these narrowly bounded circumstances, tacit knowledge skills are not widely diffused in the way that explicit knowledge is.

The fact that states or terrorist groups can easily acquire all the component technologies comprising the basic ingredients of a cruise missile does not necessarily mean that they can readily develop militarily useful missile systems. Developing any complex military system depends on a small number of key individuals who possess certain tacit knowledge skills--the most important of which are system engineering or integration ones. In the case of missile development, system-engineering skills are critical to fabricate, integrate, and produce a turbofan engine, or to integrate all the components parts of a land-attack navigation and guidance system.

Chinese fingerprints are all over Pakistan's newly tested LACM, while Russian engineering is known to have enabled China to produce a workable propulsion system for its new LACMs. Russian technical assistance, formalized in a joint production agreement, has helped India to produce and deploy its first cruise missile, the supersonic BrahMos. Iran's three new cruise missile programs depend heavily on foreign-trained engineers who honed their skills in France, Germany, Russia, China, and North Korea. Thus, while the flow of technology components is necessary, it is not sufficient to enable cruise missile proliferation without the critical support of a small and exceptionally skilled group of engineering practitioners.

Narrative

Just as the specialized knowledge of a small number of engineers can help foster the spread of LACMs, a seemingly inconsequential event can embellish the narrative message associated with LACMs and their consequent appeal. During the Iraq war, five crude Iraqi LACMs managed to evade otherwise successful U.S. missile defenses. Because they did not produce any casualties, or derail coalition military operations, Iraq's surprise use of LACMs was viewed as a footnote to an otherwise swift and successful military campaign. But to specialists within the U.S. government and elsewhere, the chief lesson became that ballistic missile defenses alone cannot address the threat of low-flying cruise missiles. And because they are significantly less expensive than missile defenses, LACMs, alongside existing ballistic missile arsenals, will make defending against all types of missile threats an increasingly costly challenge.

The advantageous military utility of cruise missiles is well known. And surely the success of American Tomahawk cruise missiles in both the 1991 and 2003 wars with Iraq burnished their appeal. Still, until recently, the symbolic and psychological power of ballistic missiles trumped LACMs' superior efficiency. As long as ballistic missiles were not seriously threatened by effective missile defenses, they maintained this apparent advantage over cruise missiles no matter how problematic their true military utility proved to be.

By 2003, circumstances had changed. Whereas U.S. missile defenses performed abysmally against Iraq's ballistic missiles during the 1991 Gulf War (the Government Accountability Office generously attributed a 9 percent interception rate to them), greatly improved Patriot missile defenses intercepted all nine of the ballistic missiles Iraq launched in 2003. That the Patriot batteries failed to detect or intercept any of the five primitive Iraqi LACMs only bolstered their value as a difficult-to-defeat delivery system. In fact, the addition of LACMs to the Iraqi missile threat sowed such confusion among U.S. forces that it contributed to a series of friendly fire casualties, leading to the loss of two friendly aircraft and three crew members, while an American F-15 crew destroyed a Patriot radar, in the belief they were being targeted.

The new cruise missile narrative is beginning to stick. President Musharraf's characterization of Pakistan's new cruise missile as undetectable and incapable of intercept seemed destined for Indian ears. It came less than a month after Washington had agreed to permit New Delhi, to acquire Israel's Arrow missile defense system. Pakistan repeated this narrative emphasis in the aftermath of its March 22, 2007 test launch of its Babur LACM. Iran, too, appears to view a cruise missile arsenal as an efficient way to increase the return on investment in its Shihab ballistic missile program.

Norms

Seemingly insignificant events can often produce surprising results, or simply reinforce already weakly established norms. Norms against missile proliferation do not have nearly the robustness or legal standing of those pertaining to the proliferation of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, yet there have been recent attempts to strengthen them. In 1999, the 34-nation Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), initiated work that eventually led, in November 2002, to the adoption of the Hague Code of Conduct against Ballistic Missile Proliferation. Open to all states and meant to complement the MTCR's supply-side restrictions on the transfer of technology and missiles, the Hague Code established a broad international norm against the spread of ballistic missiles. Despite the fact that the MTCR covers both ballistic and cruise missiles, the regime's members regrettably left cruise missiles out of the Hague code's normative content. In so doing, they may have inadvertently legitimated the acquisition of LACMs.

Three months prior to the launch of the Hague Code, the Bush administration issued its new national security strategy of preemption. The doctrine moved U.S. policy away from deterrence and containment towards attacking enemies before they could attack the United States. From the purely military point of view, there are obvious advantages to decisive and successful preemption. But from the policy point of view, there is equally the danger that brandishing such an aggressive strategy will establish a precedent for others to follow and generate unwanted instability during regional crises. Indeed, it is worrisome to see the emulation of the U.S. preemption doctrine interact with weak missile nonproliferation norms to make cruise missiles the "first strike" weapon of choice in several volatile regions of the world.

Shortly after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, President Putin said Russia retained the right to launch preemptive strikes to defend its interests. Israel, too, cited U.S. preemption doctrine when it attacked an alleged terrorist camp in Syria in October 2003. North Korea announced that "a preemptive strike is not the monopoly of the United States." The Indian external affairs minister avowed that India had a more persuasive case to launch preemptive strikes against Pakistan than did the United States against Iraq. In October 2004, a Japanese Defense Agency panel report stipulated a requirement for launching preemptive strikes against enemy ballistic missile launch installations with a ballistic missile of its own. Under pressure from its coalition partner, the Liberal Democratic Party decided to drop the ballistic missile study plan. But it subsequently became evident that Japanese defense officials had turned instead to LACMs. The reason: they anticipate fewer obstacles, both inside and outside Japan, to acquiring cruise missiles rather than ballistic missiles. Further, the high cost of purchasing land- and sea-based U.S. missile defenses, particularly in light of the ever-growing size of Chinese and North Korean offensive missile arsenals, furnishes economic and strategic logic for LACM acquisition. Cheaper offensive missile options allow the Japanese to mimic the U.S. military's doctrinal preference for "attack operations," or counterforce strikes to reduce the enemy's capacity to overwhelm missile defenses.

Elsewhere in Northeast Asia, the United States has long sought to curb the missile ambitions of South Korea and Taiwan. Worried about a North-South arms race as well as sowing suspicion in Toyko and Beijing if South Korea commenced a missile buildup, Washington persuaded Seoul to accept a 300km range/500kg payload limit on ballistic as a condition of South Korea's entry into the MTCR in 2001. Yet, despite the MTCR's equal treatment of ballistic and cruise missiles, Washington gave Seoul the go-ahead to develop LACMs no matter the range, as long as the payload was under 500kg. Shortly after Pyongyang's October 2006 nuclear test, South Korean military authorities leaked the existence of three LACM programs, involving ranges of 500km, 1,000km, and 1,500km. The South Korean press took immediate note of the fact that not just all of North Korea would be within range of these missiles, but also neighboring countries, including Japan and China. Nearly simultaneously Seoul's military rolled out a new defense plan, involving preemptive use of "surgical strike" weapons, including its LACMs, against enemy missile batteries. For cost reasons, South Korea has also rejected America's wish to sell them its Patriot missile defense system. Offensive solutions are clearly winning out over missile defense in South Korea.

A similar story is unfolding in Taiwan. Since the mid-1970s, Washington has successfully pressured Taiwan to steer clear of ballistic missile development. To cope with China's relentless build-up of ballistic missiles facing Taiwan, Washington preferred that Taipei purchase Patriot missile defenses. Taiwan finally did so in the mid-1990s, but decided against buying the latest American "hit-to-kill" missile defenses due to their extraordinarily high cost and China's new LACM development of their own. Taiwan turned instead to offensive missiles. In early 2005, Taiwan test-fired its first LACM, initially to a range of 500km, but with intentions to expand to 1,000km and to deploy 500 of them on mobile launchers. Taiwanese military analysts also spoke of a "preventive self-defense" strike option, entailing early preemptive use of cruise missiles to sow confusion in China's strike plans and recent evidence suggests that Taiwan also has a ballistic missile program underway. The U.S. State Department is pressuring Taiwan to terminate its LACM program, but with little sign of success.

Nor is South Asia immune from the contagion. In early 2004, the Indian military rolled out a new offensive strategy, called "Cold Start," involving the capacity to conduct lightening strikes across the Line of Control in Kashmir followed by withdrawal before Pakistan had a chance to react. Precision, long-range strikes would play a featured role in such a strategy, including India's new BrahMos LACM slated for deployment with Indian army units. But Indian strategists have reacted to Pakistan's Babur LACM, which has a substantial range advantage over BrahMos (initially by 200km, now 400km, achieved in Pakistan's March 2007 test), by suggesting that India approach its missile partner, Russia, to obtain certain "restrictive technologies" to match, or even greatly exceed, Babur's range. Such an expansion of BrahMos' capabilities is feasible because, unlike Indian ballistic missile programs, the BrahMos is "not under the global scanner." The discrepancy in missile norms also came into play after Pakistan's surprise test launch of its Babur cruise missile in August 2005. Only a few days earlier, Pakistan and India had agreed in principle to notify each other before missile tests. But the agreement--like the Hague Code--dealt only with ballistic missiles.

Enhancing Multilateral Approaches

The second-class treatment of cruise missiles will not change until the Hague Code gives equal normative status to both ballistic and cruise missiles. States subscribing to the Hague Code of Conduct should implement the Blix Commission's recommendation to extend the Code's scope to include cruise missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles. They should also pursue the Blix Commission's recommendation to establish a multilateral data exchange center for the exchange of data on missile launches from not only early warning systems but also launch notification on cruise missiles for which early warning data is not available.

A more progressive approach to addressing missile proliferation within the MTCR is also required to stanch the LACM epidemic. Given the cardinal importance of specialized knowledge in enabling indigenous development of LACMs--particularly those skills transferred through direct, face-to-face engagement between skilled practitioners and novice engineers--much better thinking is needed on ways and means of preventing, or interfering with, intangible technology transfers. Promoting as much transparency as possible makes good sense at precisely the time when missile proliferation may profoundly tip toward a worrisome breakout of cruise missile development programs. Let me provide just one example of the uneven handling of our approach to addressing the proliferation challenge: In the U.S., the State Department's Export Control and Related Border Security program provides outreach and export control awareness programs on five continents in 64 countries. Its funding last year was a paltry $42M--while the U.S. expends over $9B for its missile defense program.

Finally, on the matter of preemption mania, although missiles do not inherently increase the risk of conflict, ones that are difficult to detect and that could allow for a surprise attack may unnecessarily tempt states to take risks. These developments suggest the urgent need for the United States to cut a path back to strategic stability by toning down, if not entirely eliminating, the preemption option.