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Aviation History
1988
1988 - 1346.PDF
Winds of change shift SDI perceptions by Julian Moxon in Washington D.C. The debate over what the US Strategic Defence Initiative programme will actually do for strategic defence has changed "profoundly" since the pro gramme started, says SDI chief Lt Gen James Abrahamson. Speaking at the annual Aero space Industries of America (AIAA) meeting, Gen Abra hamson said that the perception of SDI is no longer "trivialised" by the idea that the system will provide a leakproof shield against Soviet ballistic missiles. "It now focusses," he said, "on what strategic defence can offer as a stabilising influence." While Gen Abrahamson and other SDI proponents were making their comments, the House of Representatives voted to cut funding for the programme by $1-4 billion, from Reagan's $4-8 billion request. This was essentially a bargaining move to counter the much higher Senate figure, but the heated debate before the vote nevertheless exposed all of the issues concerning the aims and validity of the programme. The Administration firmly believes in the long-term goal of a full-up layered defence system able to prevent enough Soviet warheads from getting through to discourage the firing of the missiles in the first place. Reagan's national security adviser, Lt Gen Colin Powell, confirmed this stance last week, to clarify the Administration's position before the Moscow summit in two weeks' time. "I have absolutely no confusion in my mind about the President's commitment," he said. Gen Powell later added that Vice- president George Bush, who will be nominated as the Repub lican candidate for the presi dency, "is as committed to this programme as the President". Critics maintain that, in being able to prevent a Soviet first strike, the USA will gain a destabilising nuclear advantage, since it would then be able to threaten the Soviet Union with nuclear attack. This is rubbished by SDI proponents, who note that the Soviet Union has been developing its own space-based defence system for years, and is ahead in some of the critical technologies. Abra hamson also said that the Soviet Union would have a 4:1 first strike advantage over the USA when modified versions of the . SS-18, SS-24, and SS-25 ICBMs were introduced. At the AIAA conference Gen Abrahamson said that the tech nical challenge facing SDI was "by far the easiest part" of the programme. The greatest chal lenge was to make the system affordable, and to obtain sufficient funding. "We have great problems in financing, which is creating instability in the programme," he said. "We're now at the take-off point. We can demonstrate the feasibility of a Phase 1 system." Dr George Keyworth, direc tor of research at the Hudson Institute and one of the key figures at the beginning of SDI, told the AIAA audience that SDI was one of the "ten best decisions" made during the Reagan Presidency. "It forced the Soviets back to the nego tiating table, and has remained on front pages worldwide since 1983." But he said that it was time that the perception of the programme was "reborn, rede fined, and reauthored," so that people realised that it was not designed as a leakproof defence against ICBMs. An extension of the debate now centres on the idea of scal ing SDI back to a much more limited ground-based "Acci dental Launch Protection System" (Alps) consisting of 100 kinetic-kill interceptors based at Grand Forks, North Dakota. A high-level panel led by Robert Everett, chairman of the Pentagon's senior scientific advisory group, has told Defence Secretary Frank Carlucci that a limited defence such as this would be a suitable initial step towards the eventual space-based system, while also complying with the 1972 anti- ballistic missile treaty. Such a system, say proponents, would protect the USA against wildcat nuclear attack from anti-US countries such as Libya and Iran (neither of whom, it was noted at the AIAA conference, have an ICBM delivery system and "who would be just as likely to send a bomb up the Potomac on a barge"), and might also serve to remove any Soviet incentive for a first strike. "Alps has pitfalls," said Dr Keyworth, "but it may prove to be the seed for redefining SDI to achieve a broad political consensus." Alps' critics include the Congress's Office of Tech nology Assessment (OTA), which concluded recently that such a system would be "ineffective" against ballistic- missile submarines operating off the coast of America. The OTA added that Alps, as currently envisaged, could easily be subdued by pene tration aids such as chaff and jamming. The OTA has been in the news recently, after a report finding that the SDI system would suffer a "catastrophic failure" the first time it was used was leaked to the Washington Post. Although the report has still not been officially released, Gen Abrahamson hit back last week by saying that it was no more than "a lecture on thenature of complex software. There was no analysis of what SDI is doing, or how it is doing it." At the AIAA, Britain's director-general of the UK Office of SDI Participation, Dr Stanley Orman, said that, if the media were to be believed, the European perception of SDI was that it was "Like a candy shop. The profligate USA has lots of candies, and the allies are gazing in, hoping for a hand out." Dr Orman denied that this was so. He said that former Defence Secretary Caspar Weinberger had invited allied participation, and that Gen Abrahamson has "energetically carried it forward". Dr Orman, who was deeply involved in developing penetration aids for the UK nuclear deterrent, added: "If you think the Ameri cans were trying to buy support for SDI, you should have tried selling it". 12 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL, 21 May 1988
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