A trajectory for homeland ballistic missile defense

The Ground-based Midcourse Defense system is intended to protect the US homeland against limited attacks from intermediate- and long-range ballistic missiles. It has succeeded in intercepting target missiles and can engage a threat launched from North Korea or the Middle East, targeting any point in the USA. Nevertheless, high-profile struggles and program changes related to homeland ballistic missile defense (BMD) continue to make headlines. The most significant struggle has been a string of three straight intercept test failures over five years, followed by the recent successful intercept test in June 2014. This article first briefly reviews the current threats of concern. It then examines homeland BMD policy objectives, followed by the current major technical issues in supporting these objectives and, then, the likelihood of negating a warhead. Finally, it highlights major considerations that should be part of the trajectory the US government takes moving forward.     

The Scope of Foreign Assistance to North Korea’s Missile Program

There is evidence that North Korea’s ballistic missile program benefited from support from the Soviet Union until its collapse and from Russia thereafter. Along with transfers of missile systems and rocket components, it appears that Russian engineers directly supported the program in North Korea. Analysis of missile launches, imagery, design solutions, and technology suggest that Pyongyang’s recent missile program may have continued to have external support despite a pause in the 2000s. This assistance may have enabled the progress in North Korea’s missile program leading to tests of an intercontinental range ballistic missile in 2017.     

Missile defense and strategic stability: Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) in South Korea

South Korea is threatened by its troubled relationship with North Korea. North Korea possesses a large cache of missiles as well as chemical and biological weapons, and the future potential to mount nuclear weapons on its missiles. The United States is also challenged because of its defense commitments to Seoul. As a countermeasure, the United States and South Korea decided to deploy Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defenses in South Korea. However, China has objected. Chinese scholars believe the THAAD radar would be able to track Chinese inter-continental ballistic missiles, thereby weakening their deterrent. A technical analysis does not support this assertion. However, it is vital for South Korea, given its proximity and economic interdependence, to reassure China. South Korea should highlight that THAAD will be deployed by the United States Forces Korea and is not a commitment by Seoul to become part of U.S.-led missile defenses in the Asia-Pacific.     

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.     

A nuclear-armed North Korea without ICBMs: the best achievable objective

This article analyzes the North Korean nuclear crisis from a balance-of-power perspective. It is in the long-term interests of international peace for a secure and independent North Korea to serve as a buffer between US and Chinese ground forces. However, the conventional military advantage of the South Korean-American alliance over North Korea has grown drastically since the end of the Cold War, threatening North Korea’s survival. Since North Korea lacks any reliable ally, nuclear weapons represent its most cost-effective way to restore a balance of power and thus secure itself. Accepting security guarantees in exchange for its nuclear arsenal is rhetorically appealing but not a viable approach. North Korea’s development of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), however, has overcompensated for the post-Cold War imbalance, inviting talk in Washington of waging a preventive war. Persuading North Korea to give up its ICBM capability, not its nuclear arsenal, should therefore be the primary objective of US diplomacy.     

弹道导弹再入段动态RCS特性分析

研究弹道导弹再入段动态RCS特性,有利于防空反导作战中对其进行有效探测和拦截。首先对弹道目标机动航迹进行建模,然后结合坐标转换公式获得目标姿态角变化,最后利用EDITFEKO软件实现对目标动态RCS实时仿真。针对不同再入角的机动航迹,仿真了不同雷达布站情况下目标动态RCS变化。仿真结果表明,弹道导弹侧向RCS大于正向RCS,反导预警雷达应部署在弹道导弹射程之内,使雷达对着弹道导弹侧面。仿真结果为反导预警雷达的部署提供依据。     

地空导弹与弹道导弹的技术融合正在促使这两类导弹产生突破性的发展

地空导弹采用弹道导弹的抛物弹道技术 ,能够实现应用固体推进剂达到低质量远射程的目标。弹道导弹采用地空导弹末段弹道的寻的制导控制技术 ,可以达到降速、增程并实现末段有效制导控制和弹道机动的目标 ,从而大幅度提高命中精度和突防概率。地空导弹和弹道导弹之间的技术融合 ,已经开始并将很快形成这两类导弹的新一轮突破性的发展     

基于EKF算法的弹道导弹助推段跟踪建模与仿真

围绕弹道导弹助推段跟踪问题,分析了助推段反弹道导弹的基本作战过程,建立了弹道导弹助推段动力学模型,分别就单传感器/单弹道导弹和多传感器/多弹道导弹两种情况建立了基于EKF算法的弹道导弹助推段跟踪模型,并通过算例验证了模型和算法的有效性,可为助推段反弹道导弹建模与仿真提供一定的参考。     

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.     

Did Star Wars Help End the Cold War? Soviet Response to the SDI Program

The Strategic Defense Initiative was a U.S. missile defense program that played a very prominent role in the U.S.–Soviet relationships in the 1980s and is often credited with helping end the Cold War, as it presented the Soviet Union with a technological challenge that it could not meet. This article introduces several official Soviet documents to examine Soviet response to SDI. The evidence suggests that although the Soviet Union expressed serious concerns about U.S. missile defense program, SDI was not a decisive factor in advancing arms control negotiations. Instead, the program seriously complicated U.S.–Soviet arms control process. SDI also failed to dissuade the Soviet Union from investing in development of ballistic missiles. The Soviet Union quickly identified ways to avoid a technological arms race with the United States and focused on development of advanced missiles and anti-satellite systems to counter missile defenses. Some of these programs have been preserved to the current day.     

‘A fly in outer space’: Soviet ballistic missile defence during the Khrushchev period

Although the Soviet missile defence effort was begun to protect the USSR from attack by nuclear missiles, Khrushchev was quick to see its political value, and used the prospect of an anti‐ballistic missile system to emphasize Soviet technological superiority. Within the Soviet armed forces there was widespread consensus about the importance of ABM's damage‐limiting role. The debates about strategy for future war in Soviet military publications demonstrate that support in the armed forces for an ABM capability transcended service loyalties and remained remarkably strong even after 1962, when technical problems and an effort to improve relations with the US following the Cuban Missile Crisis meant that the missile defence project no longer enjoyed the public backing of senior Party and military figures.     

弹道导弹滚动飞行稳定仿真

弹道导弹在助推段需要滚动突防,减少强激光照射的驻留时间,可以有效地对抗激光反导,但姿态稳定的实现则有很大的不同。利用经典控制理论和多变量频域理论设计了导弹的自动驾驶仪,仿真结果表明,对静不稳定导弹的一级助推段可以实现低滚速下的稳定飞行。     

基于系统动力学的导弹综合防护体系仿真

在未来高技术战争中,弹道导弹武器的作用越来越大,它已成为各国战略威胁手段和对敌实施纵深打击的主要力量之一,也是敌攻击的首选目标,因此对导弹阵地综合防护体系的研究就显得十分重要.在给出导弹阵地综合防护体系的框架后,建立了基于系统动力学的综合防护体系模型,在不同仿真条件下对模型进行仿真并分析了仿真结果,得出了对综合防护体系效能影响大的因素.     

弹道导弹威胁估计模型构建

简要分析了弹道导弹飞行3个阶段的不同特点及各阶段导弹预警探测手段的侧重点,结合威胁估计的特征构建了弹道导弹威胁估计模型结构框架,运用多阶段贝叶斯网络理论,构造了主动段、自由段和再入段威胁估计模型,并明确了三阶段间的转换时机。采用动态贝叶斯方法对弹道导弹作战全过程进行威胁估计仿真推理,仿真结果能够反映导弹在飞行过程中威胁程度的变化特点,为反导指挥员作出辅助决策提供智力支持。     

基于导弹空间飞行的空间碎片筛选方法研究

随着空间活动的日益频繁,空间碎片的数量也与日俱增,给远程弹道导弹的空间飞行安全带来巨大威胁。针对空间碎片数目繁多,为了快速进行导弹空间飞行安全预警和发射窗口选择,根据远程弹道导弹空间飞行特点,提出了适用于导弹与空间碎片碰撞预警的空间碎片筛选方法,并通过仿真计算证明了该筛选方法的科学性和合理性,该筛选方法可提高导弹空间飞行安全预警效率并缩短预警时间。     

基于飞行时间的弹道导弹火力控制

为了达到最佳射击效果,弹道导弹突击目标时经常需要多枚导弹同时击中目标,因此根据飞行时间确定发射时间则成为弹道导弹火力控制问题的重要内容。以具体导弹为例,采用仿真的方法分析了影响飞行时间的内在原因,得出了明确的结论,使导弹部队能够根据飞行时间确定发射时间,从而合理地进行火力控制,提高毁伤效果和震慑力。     

基于仿真实验的弹道导弹阵地优选

合理部署弹道导弹位置对于提高作战效能具有至关重要的作用。基于解析计算的优化方法难以反映环境因素、武器装备的技术和动力特性等不确定性因素对部署位置的影响,求得的结果存在置信度低的问题。故将解析法与仿真实验相结合,以体系对抗条件下弹道导弹作战效能评估的数学模型为基础,建立了由各种作战实体和行动的模型聚合而成的弹道导弹攻防对抗仿真模型,然后通过仿真实验找出最优部署位置,最后给出了应用示例。实验表明该方法具有速度快、效率高、结果清晰直观的特点,可为指挥员提供科学、快速的决策支持。     

The Chinese and Asian impact on Russian nuclear policy

Asia, where nuclear powers already interact (including North Korea), exerts a growing influence on the thinking and policy underlying Russia's current and future nuclear (and overall defense) posture. China's rise is forcing Russia into a greater reliance on strategic offensive weapons and tactical nuclear weapons. These in turn will reinforce its opposition to US missile defenses, not only in Europe but also in Asia. Russia must now entertain the possibility of nuclear use in regional conflicts that would otherwise remain purely conventional. It cannot be postulated blindly that nuclear weapons serve no discernible purpose other than to deter nuclear attacks by other nuclear powers. The strategic equation in Asia and in the Russian Far East convincingly demonstrates the falsity of this approach. Nuclear weapons will be the essential component of Russia's regional defense policy if not of its overall policies – and this also includes contingencies in Europe.     

Why provoke? the Sino-US competition in East Asia and North Korea’s strategic choice

This article seeks to make sense of North Korean provocations in light of the Sino-US strategic competition in post-Cold War East Asia, where such variables as China’s rise, US’s pivot to Asia, and growing Sino-ROK economic ties are driving the strategic choices of major states in the region. The article examines the main motivations behind Pyongyang’s provocations since the end of the Cold War, discusses their implications for the Sino-US strategic competition in East Asia, and offers predictions about the future of North Korean provocations. The central thesis of the article is that Pyongyang has exploited the Sino-US strategic competition in East Asia for its regime survival. By raising North Korea’s strategic value to China, the intensifying Sino-US competition allows Pyongyang to continue provocations, regardless of Beijing’s explicit opposition.     

弹道导弹防御系统的现状与发展

本文综述了美国退出《反弹道导弹条约》以来,如何调整弹道导弹防御计划,制定新的发展战略,实施各种防御技术,初步建立防御能力,并论述了美国弹道导弹防御系统的现状与发展趋势。