Boost-glide Weapons and US-China Strategic Stability

ABSTRACT

The United States and China are testing boost-glide weapons, long-range strike systems capable of flying at Mach 5 or faster through the upper atmosphere. For the United States, these systems would provide a conventional prompt global strike capability, which, together with US ballistic missile defense programs, Chinese experts regard as a threat to China's ability to conduct nuclear retaliation. This perception is encouraging the Chinese military to modify its nuclear posture in ways that tend to create greater risks for both sides. If China's own boost-glide systems are meant to carry nuclear payloads only, their deployment would not fundamentally alter the current situation between the two states. However, if they were conventionally armed or dual-purpose, or if the United States could not determine the payloads they carried, the deployment of Chinese boost-glide systems could compound problems of strategic stability created by the introduction of ballistic missile defense, antisatellite, and antiship ballistic missile capabilities. If the technical hurdles can be overcome, it may be difficult for the two sides to refrain from these deployments in the absence of strong mutual trust or an established arms-control relationship. New confidence-building measures and expanded mutual transparency are warranted to avoid creating new dangers.     

South Asia's Missile Expansion

ABSTRACT

Over the past decade, contrary to declarations that they are pursuing “minimum” deterrence, India and Pakistan have considerably expanded their missile forces. India has developed eleven types of missiles while Pakistan has fielded nine. These missile forces have a mixed impact on deterrence stability. Both states' medium-range missiles strengthen their countervalue deterrent capabilities against the other, though India's China-specific missiles still have limitations. India's and Pakistan's short-range missiles and first-generation naval systems raise concerns about nuclear ambiguity, command and control, and escalation across the nuclear threshold, ultimately undermining deterrence stability on the subcontinent.     

BALLISTIC TRAJECTORY

North Korea has been one of the world's most active suppliers of ballistic missile systems since the mid-1980s, but the nature of its missile export business has changed significantly during this period. Unclassified, publicly available data show that the great majority of known deliveries of complete missile systems from North Korea occurred before 1994. The subsequent fall-off took place a decade too early to be explained by the Proliferation Security Initiative of 2003. It can be explained by a combination of factors that have reduced demand. First, after selling production equipment for ballistic missiles to many states, especially in the Middle East, North Korea by the late 1990s had become primarily a supplier of missile parts and materials, not complete systems. Second, after Operation Desert Storm, some missile-buying states shifted their attention away from ballistic missiles in favor of manned aircraft, cruise missiles, and missile defense systems supplied by Western powers. Third, some states experienced pressure from the United States to curtail their dealings with North Korea. During the last decade, having shed most of its previous customer base, North Korea has entered a phase of collaborative missile development with a smaller number of state partners, particularly Iran and Syria. Its known sales of complete missile systems are relatively small and infrequent. North Korea's time as missile supplier to the Middle East at large has ended, but there is a risk that regional states will turn to North Korea as a supplier of nuclear technology in the future.     

基于证据理论的常规导弹阵地生存防护研究

着眼于阵地生存防护对策分析中的不确定性,提出了一种基于证据理论判别来袭武器类型的方法,通过对武器威胁度的评估,建立了来袭武器威胁等级判据,构建了详细的生存对策,可为常规导弹阵地生存防护决策提供有效的辅助支持.     

The end of the “INF Treaty” and the US-China military balance

ABSTRACT

Whereas much of the debate about the demise of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty has focused on the European context and Russia’s alleged treaty violations, Asia looms large in the minds of proponents of the United States’s immediate withdrawal from the treaty. For many proponents, the fast-changing military balance in Asia and China's conventionally armed missiles constitute a sufficient cause for withdrawal. What does the end of the INF Treaty bode for the US-China military balance? This article argues that, although there are some near-term benefits for the US position in the conventional military balance with China, the advantages offered by prohibited missiles are minor and can be readily substituted by extant capabilities that are compliant with the treaty. Given the negative implications of the end of the INF Treaty for the future of arms control, the costs and benefits of withdrawing from the treaty require further examination; the military balance in Asia is an unpersuasive rationale for withdrawing from an important part of the arms-control architecture.     

地面防空火力单元基于D-S理论选择反导防御手段

在现代战争中,飞航导弹发挥了重要作用,取得了巨大的作战效能。地面防空火力单元面临着如何合理使用防御措施、正确选择干扰手段加强对飞航导弹防御的问题。提出一种把基于D-S理论的数据融合技术应用于地面防空火力单元选择干扰手段进行反导防御的方法。结果表明,利用D-S理论可以较好地选择对飞航导弹的干扰手段。     

Russia and Strategic Conventional Weapons:

ABSTRACT

Russian political leaders and military strategists are growing increasingly concerned about “strategic conventional weapons”—a broad category that appears to include all non-nuclear, high-precision, standoff weapons—and about long-range, hypersonic weapons, in particular. These concerns are complex and multifaceted (and, in some cases, contradictory), but chief among them are the beliefs that strategic conventional weapons could prove decisive in a major conflict and that Russia is lagging behind in their development. US programs to develop and acquire such weapons—namely, the Conventional Prompt Global Strike program—are of great concern to Russian strategists, who argue both that the United States seeks such weapons for potential use against Russia—its nuclear forces, in particular—and because strategic conventional weapons are more “usable” than nuclear weapons. Asymmetric responses by Russia include increased reliance on tactical nuclear weapons, efforts to enhance the survivability of its nuclear forces, and investments in air and missile defenses. There is also strong—but not completely conclusive evidence—that Russia is responding symmetrically by attempting to develop a long-range, conventionally armed boost-glide weapon.     

India's Pursuit Of Ballistic Missile Defense

This article analyzes India's efforts to deploy a Ballistic Missile Program (BMD). The article has three objectives. First, it argues that scientific-bureaucratic factors and India's incapacity to deter Pakistan's use of terrorist proxies have driven its quest for BMD. Second, the article also evaluates the current state of India's two-tiered missile defense shield. In spite of various claims on the part of India's defense science establishment, the paper estimates that India still lacks a deployable BMD system and is still far from developing an effective strategy of deterrence-through-denial. Third, the article analyzes the implications of the development of India's BMD system for nuclear stability in South Asia. The article shows how India's BMD capacities, however limited, have indirectly exacerbated the security concerns of India's regional rival, Pakistan.     

GLOBALIZING REAGAN'S INF TREATY

When it was concluded more than a quarter century ago, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union was hailed as a disarmament watershed, eliminating entire classes of nuclear missiles from the arsenals of the arms-racing Cold War superpowers. Over the intervening decades, there have been repeated calls to convert this legacy treaty into a new international norm against nuclear and missile proliferation by broadening it into a global prohibition on ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. Indeed, variations on this proposal have been knocking around for so long and with so little success that the entire concept has come to be dismissed by many knowledgeable insiders as something of a farce. Looking beyond its inauspicious pedigree, however, this viewpoint suggests that the time is opportune for Washington to give the idea a fresh look. Drawing on a detailed review of the history of “Global INF” and an analysis of the contemporary context, the author recommends that the Obama administration consider a simple declaratory approach that promises modest initial benefits, avoids previous and foreseeable pitfalls, and plausibly lays a solid foundation for achieving significant long-term progress.     

巡航导弹综合防御系统仿真研究

巡航导弹超低空突防效果好、命中精度高、价格低廉,这些优越的性能使其在近几次局部战争中大显身手,越来越受到世界各国的高度重视,也促使各国纷纷研究巡航导弹及其防御措施.国内对巡航导弹的防御研究多从电子对抗与火力打击两方面分别入手,缺乏对巡航导弹的综合防御系统及其仿真的研究.为了更好地研究巡航导弹的综合防御问题,在分析巡航导弹防御方法的基础上,提出构建对巡航导弹进行软硬对抗的综合防御系统,并建立了基于DIS的综合防御系统仿真框架,介绍了系统的体系结构和模型体系,对进一步深化巡航导弹防御研究具有重要的意义.     

The Obama administration's phased-adaptive architecture: technological,operational and political issues

In 2009, the Obama administration announced a new missile defense strategy, termed a phased-adaptive architecture (PAA) focused primarily on countering the growing threat from theater ballistic missiles. The success of this strategy is predicated on the rapid development and fielding of successive increments of defensive capability in a manner adapted to the specific requirements for missile defenses in different regions of the world. The administration is committed to building a European regional missile defense system, the European PAA or EPAA between now and 2020. The first elements of the EPAA were deployed in late 2011. However, much progress is still required in order to reach the goals set for the PAA. This article addresses the technological, operational and political issues confronting the Obama administration in its efforts to make the PAA a reality.     

US Advanced Conventional Systems and Conventional Prompt Global Strike Ambitions:

ABSTRACT

The dangers and risks of employing a Conventional Prompt Global Strike (CPGS) capability greatly exceed the benefits. More suitable, if less prompt, alternatives exist to deal with fleeting targets. Even a niche CPGS capability—consisting of approximately twenty systems—carries risks, to say nothing of proposals to develop hundreds or more. Most dangerously, CPGS could stir the pre-emption pot, particularly vis-à-vis states that correctly perceive to be within the gunsights of US CPGS weapons; other states, too, may feel emboldened to emulate this US precedent and undertake their own form of prompt, long-range strike capability. Compressed circumstances surrounding such a scenario could foster unwanted erratic behavior, including the misperception that the threatening missile carries a nuclear weapon. But the true Achilles's heel of the CPGS concept is the unprecedented demands it places on the intelligence community to provide decision makers with “exquisite” intelligence within an hour timeframe. Such compressed conditions leave decision makers with virtually no time to appraise the direct—and potentially unintended—consequences of their actions.     

现代巡航导弹防御的特点分析

现代巡航导弹具有超低空、机动飞行、精确制导和隐身性能的特点,它突防能力极强, 是现代战争的重要威胁之一。拦截巡航导弹已成为正在发展的防空导弹重要任 务之一。针对巡航导弹防御的必要性和可行性及存在的主要问题进行了评估, 介绍了美国巡 航导弹防御领域的试验进展情况     

弹道导弹打击航空母舰末制导有效区的确定与评估

在地地弹道式导弹与航空母舰攻防对抗中,需要研究航母是否在导弹进攻的有效区内。针对具有末制导的弹道式导弹具有再入机动变轨特性,建立了导弹再入机动飞行模型,提出了导弹在不同的再入条件下,对其飞行弹道及机动能力进行仿真计算的方法,通过仿真确定出了导弹打击航空母舰的有效区域。在此基础上,探讨了导弹在以不同的再入姿态、不同的再入飞行高度实施末制导时,导弹落点的有效区域、边界外形及有效区的变化范围。从所得结果来看,所建模型及仿真方法正确可行,在一定程度上解决了弹道导弹打击航空母舰战斗群作战保障急需解决的一些问题。     

US–Russia relations and the future of arms control: how the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty could restore engagement on nuclear issues

ABSTRACT

Relations between the United States and Russia are in a prolonged downward spiral. Under these circumstances, cooperation on nuclear issues—once a reliable area of engagement even in difficult political environments—has all but completely halted. There are urgent reasons to find a way out of this situation, particularly the expiration of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty in 2021. However, seemingly intractable disagreements about noncompliance with the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty and US ballistic-missile defense, compounded by the Ukraine crisis, the conflict in Syria, and the accusations of Russian interference in the US election of 2016, threaten the future of arms control. Against this backdrop, policy makers and practitioners should identify ways to re-engage on nuclear issues now so they can be ready to implement them as soon as feasible. This article considers how the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) could serve as a platform for US–Russia cooperation on nuclear issues when circumstances permit. Taking into account the challenges posed by ongoing US non-ratification, it identifies a menu of CTBT-related activities short of ratification that the two countries could undertake together. It explores how joint work on this issue would advance shared US and Russian interests while helping to create the circumstances necessary for further arms-control work.     

全球信息栅格及其对美军导弹防御系统的作用

导弹防御系统是美军重点发展的战略武器系统。C4ISR作为导弹防御系统体系中重要的通信指挥自动化系统,由于其自身存在着信息网闭塞与狭窄的缺点,制约着导弹防御系统的功能发挥。美军目前正在全力建设全球信息栅格,通过整合各种信息资源,构成一个可以共享"陆、海、空、天"多维信息的互连互通互操作网络,提升导弹防御系统的一体化信息交互,建成一个多层次、全方位、覆盖全球的导弹拦截系统。     

防空导弹末段反导作战部署模型

防空导弹末段拦截弹道导弹的作战效能与防空导弹火力单元的部署位置密切相关,合理的战斗部署是成功反导的前提和关键.分析了防空导弹末段反导的条件和反导防御区,在此基础上探讨了防空导弹反导杀伤区纵深和相关射击诸元的算法.然后,使用末段低层和末段高层反导火力单元组成双层防御系统,对防御从一个方向和从扇区来袭弹道导弹的反导火力单元部署位置确定模型进行了研究.研究成果对防空导弹末段反导的作战使用具有参考价值.     

美国导弹防御系统发展动向及对策思考

随着奥巴马政府各项安全政策主张的陆续出台,美国导弹防御系统建设进入一个新的发展时期.分析了美国导弹防御系统发展的最新动向,剖析了美导弹防御系统发展对我国国家安全的影响,提出了应对美导弹防御系统发展的对策思考.     

Preserving defense technologies: A strategy for economic conversion†

This paper presents a model for converting legacy defense production facilities into private‐sector economic resources. Specifically, this paper will examine as a case study the first successful conversion of a former U.S. Department of Energy nuclear weapons production installation, including reasons for its success, its costs and benefits, and lessons for public policy. It is envisioned that this model may be useful for mitigating local economic hardship resulting from defense “downsizing” and for privatizing production capacities critical for national defense.