What the F*** Do They Think the Russians are Going to Shoot at Them?!

Jeffrey Lewis 0:06

You are listening to the Arms Control Wonk podcast, a podcast on arms control, disarmament and nonproliferation. I'm Dr. Jeffrey Lewis, the founding publisher of the Arms Control Wonk blog and a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.

Aaron Stein 0:21

And I'm Dr. Aaron Stein, chief content officer at War on the Rocks. Jeffrey, it's good to see you.

Jeffrey 0:28

It's good to see you. I'm so excited, Aaron, that we're here to discuss ARMS when you've got a pair of them on display.

Aaron 0:38

It's hot on the East Coast. It's just you and I. It's virtual, so I'm wearing my running tank top. I'm just saying, it's the Arms Control Wonk Arms Show. This is my summer attire. If you were to catch me strolling through the streets of Philadelphia, nine times out of ten, I'm in a tank top because I don't care.

This is how I roll.

Jeffrey 1:00

So Germany is buying the Arrow 3. Buy $4 billion worth of missiles, get a pod?

Aaron 1:08

It's also, it's a fun missile because, I don't know, I always find Israeli missiles interesting because of the mix and the intrigue because they seem somewhat mysterious, even though they're not really.

Jeffrey 1:18

Right, so we can go through the system and what we make of this and why we think it's interesting, but just to catch listeners up, For about the last year, I guess, there have been reports that Germany was going to add an exo-atmospheric interceptor to its suite of missile defense capabilities. That that exo-atmospheric interceptor would be Arrow 3.

And now it looks like that deal is going forward. And it's, I think, like three... 3.9 billion euros yeah it's a big one which is you know something like 4.3 billion dollars for three Arrow three batteries each which comes with i think four launchers and each launcher has six tubes and i presume there will be there will be extra extra missiles but that's that's Quite a sizable investment in a very specific capability.

Aaron 2:26

Yeah, this is part of, I think they're calling it the SkyShield program, which is they want to bolster up European missile defenses, I think, in addition to US plans for European missile defense.

Jeffrey 2:37

Yeah, although I gather the French are less than pleased by Germany's decision to take $4 billion and send it abroad, as opposed to maybe plowing that money into MBDA and funding a European exo-atmospheric intercept capability.

Aaron 2:55

We should be getting into this now. I think that's why they chose Aero and they didn't choose a similar Raytheon product from the US is because of the French grumblings that they should have bought Euro. But that's just a hypothesis of mine. And so this is a backdoor way to get access to American technology because I think Boeing is the subprime on the Israeli aerospace industry, Arrow 3.

Jeffrey 3:20

Yeah, I mean, that makes sense. I mean, one of the reasons we knew about this pending sale was that the Israelis had to come to the U.S. to get approval. I mean, I know we all refer to the Arrow Interceptor family as Israeli, but the U.S. has provided about half the developmental costs. The original Arrow came out of the Strategic Defense Initiative organization, which, you know...

Holy cow. I'm almost tempted to say I think it's the only system that transitioned out of SDI. But I say that and there's probably one I'm not thinking of. And there's a lot of US technology and a lot of US contractors on it. So that's right. But God, this is a weird freaking decision. And I just – boy, for four – Billion dollars.

It really, it strikes me as peculiar for like a lot of reasons.

Aaron 4:17

Well, they operate Patriot, but again, we're talking about XO. But the US is building SM3 next door. Like legitimately next door in Poland, they're building SM3 and in Romania. So I guess a little bit farther than next door, but in the neighborhood.

Jeffrey 4:33

Yeah. So I have three questions on my list. Question one is, why are you worried about exo-atmospheric intercepts? If you are worried about exoatmospheric intercepts, question two is what is the problem with the two Aegis Ashore sites built for that very purpose at great expense and after endless haggling? Right. And if there is some problem with it, it's called the phased adaptive approach for a reason.

Why can't it not be adapted if you're going to light $4 billion on fire? Right. And if really you just want your own interceptor because you don't play well with others, I don't know. Boy, this is a weird one to pick for lots of reasons, technically. Because it's a cool but absolutely freaking bizarre interceptor. So I have questions, Aaron.

Aaron 5:30

And it's the highlight of the – I'm going to butcher the German – Zeytenwende. Zeytenwende, however you pronounce it. Sort of the big allocation of extra euros at the start of the Ukrainian war for defense modernization on the German side. And did you want to stick at missile defense? No. That's another question I have as well.

Jeffrey 5:52

Well, I mean – so maybe let's start with the why the hell are you worried about exoatmospheric intercept? I mean the – I actually have a quote from the relevant German official explaining this and it's – I mean – It's real dumb. I'm sure you can hear my children screaming.

Aaron 6:11

It's okay. It's the summer arms control long tradition. The junior fellows are involved.

Jeffrey 6:15

God forbid. All right. So, yeah, here. I've got it here. It is – so this is how they explained it. It was the head of the German Air Force said – As for higher interceptors, we have the Patriot weapon system that we will modernize. But if it means threats at 15,000 kilometers and then it is exo-atmospheric, we don't have anything.

And that is why I had a close look at Arrow 3. And we are really interested in the purchase of the system. Like, what? Like, I hate this argument. I mean, this is like a traditional argument. Defense argument I hear all the time, which is like, well, there's a gap, you know. And it's like, yeah, but is it a gap you need to plug with four billion freaking dollars? Because all of the Russian systems I can think of that would potentially be targeted at Germany are going to be endo-atmospheric. The Iskander has like a 50 kilometer apogee because it does aerodynamic maneuvering, the pull-up.

Yeah, so, like, what the f*** do they think the Russians are going to shoot at them? They think they're going to, like, finish the RS-26 Rubezh, and they're going to be, like, lobbying nuclear weapons, and they're going to be intercepting them with Arrow 3s? Like, I really... I, at some fundamental level... I really think that they were just like, oh, well, we have a gap and so we should fill the gap without thinking about like, is this the biggest problem you have that you need $4 billion to solve?

Because I probably would have wanted $4 billion of like other missile defense stuff.

Aaron 8:07

Right. So I don't disagree because I was racking my brain as you were asking that question because we did not script this off pod about what Russian missile systems they would be defending against. And my brain instantly went to the Iskander and I said, well, wait a minute, that doesn't fly high enough. But I think the backdrop to this is something you constantly hear from German officials is the breakdown in the INF.

So are they worst case scenario planning about future Russian missiles in the absence of the INF?

Jeffrey 8:32

Yeah, and I can imagine doing that. But then again, you know, if you were going to worst case a scenario like that, you're going to imagine a universe that you're living in, in which there are all kinds of all kinds of conventionally armed, long range threats. If that's if it really was like a general like we are concerned about the long term problem, wouldn't you just spend the money on your own domestic capability?

Aaron 8:57

Yes, I think that's what the French are saying.

Jeffrey 9:00

I mean, I sort of understand, you know, because $4 billion is not a bargain. And, you know, we'll see there are kind of technical questions that I have about the system. But, I mean, if you are really worried that this is just an era in which you are going to be dealing with this problem at scale, then, you know, buying three Arrow batteries is maybe not the solution.

But, you know, like also what's the hurry?

Aaron 9:26

Well, let's talk about the arrow in itself. You call it a very weird missile interceptor. Not necessarily weird in a bad way. Maybe it's just funky in terms of its construction. And I think it's because it's specifically constructed for the threat environment that the Israelis face. Or at least that's the underlying assumptions of the technology. But correct me if I'm wrong.

Yeah, so I don't have any idea what the hell they're thinking.

Jeffrey 9:51

So, you know, okay. So the first thing to say is Arrow, as a family, is a series of three and soon to be four extremely distinct interceptors. So it's not like if you were to look at Arrow 2 and Arrow 3, you would see any connection between these two things. You know, like Arrow is like... You know, it's like a brand name almost.

It doesn't really tell you anything about the technological lineage. At least, I don't think it does. I mean, presumably some people are involved in the same thing. But Arrow 2 is like... I mean, it's pretty big, but it performs like a Patriot.

Aaron 10:32

You know, it has...

Jeffrey 10:34

Not great burnout, you know, like less than two kilometers a second is pretty standard in the way that it's configured. Arrow 3 is big, has big burnout, about three kilometers a second, as best I could tell from modeling it. You know, I looked at the thrust by measuring the acceleration and, you know, estimated the, could see the burn time because they gave us a whole burn and, you know, sort of worked all that out.

But what's really weird about it is it has this bizarre second stage. And the second, so almost every, almost every, I think every other missile defense interceptor has divert attitude control systems. You know, where you have small thrusters that make tiny adjustments. Okay, Arrow 3 has a full solid rocket motor with thrust vector control. So that it can make huge dives.

So it has huge divert capability. But I mean, Oh, you know, like it's pretty fancy. I mean, it's, it's fancy enough that the Israeli designer patented it. So we actually know a little bit about the concept because there's like actually a patent you can go look at. And when the U.S. was funding it, the Missile Defense Agency was very clear that they looked at this as a very high-risk program.

Aaron 12:04

Because of that huge divert capability?

Jeffrey 12:06

Yes, because it's a totally different concept, and it's really hard to imagine you would make it work. Now, it has an okay test record, but there isn't much of a test record. You know, it's like three different occasions in which it was tested. And on a couple of those occasions, at least once, maybe twice, it was a couple of tests.

But we don't have a ton of data. So, you know, you're looking at like five, six tests.

Aaron 12:29

Why would you want that huge divert? I mean, I can guess at it. So it gives you more footprint. Right. So you can use less of them?

Jeffrey 12:39

And presumably helps you if you're, well, you know, they've done salvo firing, so I don't really know if that's true. But it would also help a little bit with maneuvering. Although, you know, like this is a really fancy way to give yourself a bigger footprint. And it's not a bad idea, but it's a risky idea. And there haven't been that many tests of it.

And so to put $4 billion into this as your primary system just is really, it's just curious to me. I mean, it's cool, like it's neat, but like, Jesus, you know, you've got these two Aegis Ashore sites that do exactly the same thing. Wouldn't you just rather have like $4 billion more of SM3 interceptors at them?

Aaron 13:34

Well, I mean, this gets to the politics about why. And again, my hypothesis is that they tried to buy outside the family. And perhaps there's some work share agreements for German industry that hasn't been revealed yet in terms of funding. Yeah, I mean, that's totally possible.

Jeffrey 13:53

I will say there is this other argument floating around that I just absolutely don't believe that the advantage is that the system is mobile, unlike Aegis Ashore. Because it's, like, missile defenses are not really mobile. Like, I mean, I know they are technically mobile, but you have to, like, set them up to use them. And the other side goes first.

So, like, you will be set up and ready. Right. And it's not like the other side says, okay, time to hide your missile defense interceptors. We're launching in six hours. Right? The other side initiates the missile strike. So, you know, mobility, I think, has some value, but, like...

Aaron 14:32

Not that much, and it is mobile. These things go on ships.

Jeffrey 14:40

And you could bolt one to a trailer, which is what the US did.

Aaron 14:44

What would we call that? That was the hillbilly. The hillbilly tell. The hillbilly tell. That's what we called that thing. It was the Beverly hillbilly tell.

Jeffrey 14:51

Insulting hillbillies everywhere.

Aaron 14:54

That's unfair. It's very unfair. And again, I'm going to come back to this because maybe this came out in your modeling. The Israelis do build these things around the Iranian threat. And they have different – I mean, they have different missiles than I think what would be in the European theater. So I do wonder if this interceptor is built to defend against – I mean, Russia doesn't have any missiles that this thing can shoot down.

Jeffrey 15:21

You know? I mean, the Iskander is endo-atmospheric. And so then you have to go up into ICBMs, which – You know, I just... Boy, if it was an ICBM, I would really want an SM-3. So, you know, because it's... I'm pretty sure it has an optical seeker, so you can't do an endo-atmospheric intercept with it. So really, unless the Russians start doing DF-26 clones, I have no idea what they plan to shoot at with this thing.

Which is why I go back to them saying like, well, we have a gap. Like, oh, you have the gap, huh? Okay. Great. Great Hans. You have the gap. Okay. Yeah, but we have the gap. We have a gap and we have to fill it with some $4 billion.

Aaron 16:19

I'm not going to touch the German accent. I'm just not going to go there. I mean, is there anything else that we need to hit here? Yeah, yeah, but it's a gap. I mean, they're going to say it's part of a family of systems, and so they also have Patriot as well. And so Iskander will be dealing with Patriot, right?

And Patriot's proven itself, at least notionally, in Ukraine with the shoot down of the Kinzhal, reportedly. And then beyond that, they have the IRIST, that's also been put to use in Ukraine as well. So they now have a layered missile defense system themselves.

Jeffrey 17:00

I'm not saying that they shouldn't invest in layered missile defenses. I just... I just... This is really curious. You know, I think what I'm dancing around is this deep sense that from a pure technical and budgetary standpoint, this makes zero sense, that you should take the $4 billion and you should invest it in a domestic capability, or you should go out and you should fund, you know, purchases of something like SM-3, which has a better...

Test record or you should actually just not bother with exoatmospheric intercept at this point anyway because it's not a problem you should spend that money on pack three and that and you know well you can't spend it on me ads anymore should we do it

Aaron 17:48

We had a five-minute discussion about Miads, and we both concluded that we didn't care enough to ever read about Miads.

Jeffrey 17:53

Yeah, which maybe is part of the German's hurt feelings. It's a boosted pack three. I mean, how much more am I supposed to go into this? It was funny. You were like, I didn't look at it closely, and I was like, I've never thought about it at all. I have a whole spreadsheet of interceptors I've modeled, including THAAD with a booster and all kinds of weird shit.

And I've never even bothered with me ads.

Aaron 18:24

I honestly forgot it existed until you brought it up on this podcast. I was like, oh, yeah, that one.

Jeffrey 18:29

But I guess what I do wonder about, and this is where your expertise is undoubtedly better than mine, is, is there underneath all of this, this kind of, you know, what I always find, vague, amorphous political reasoning? Which is really like people actually believe this gap stuff. Like, well, we have a gap. We should fill it. And we want to fill it with a foreign system, not a domestic system.

Well, I do think – There's all this political stuff going on, right? That is presumably important as well.

Aaron 19:03

I do think you're underselling particularly the German. And this has just been in my anecdotal experience. This always comes up at meetings. And even before the INF died – We were having – when I was living in Switzerland, German Air Force exchange folks who would come through the think tank I was affiliated with asking me about the INF because they would listen to this podcast.

I do think the abrogation of the INF and the potential for Russia to build new intermediate range systems that could target Europe even if they are in the ICBM class fit – maybe justified the folks who said we have a gap. I want to invest it in this thing. And so it was politics meeting, I guess, heightened threat perceptions leading towards.

And then I do think on top of all of it, they didn't want to buy American for optical reasons, maybe within their own political coalition, maybe because they just bought the F-35 over objections to some of the coalition partners. And so this was the only thing left available in that class. It's just my guess.

Jeffrey 20:07

You know, I guess I'm just so old-fashioned. If I had $4 billion and I was living in an era of rampant missile proliferation, I wouldn't buy defenses. I would buy my own offensives. I would spend $4 billion on, you know, Hyunmoo 3 and 4s rather than, you know...

Aaron 20:28

Does the cowboy shoot the arrow? No, the cowboy shoots the Indian. I would do, you know, ground-launch scalp. You know, in trucks moving around Germany, which is something we've always advocated for. Ground launch scalp would be fine. Yeah. On the Arms Control Wong podcast, which is extended range scalp if you don't want to buy American and get more offensive missiles into Europe without the US.

I would totally spend my $4 billion on offensive capabilities. But as we have discussed, I'm a –

Jeffrey 20:58

I'm a deterrence guy. I'm an offensive. I like the offense. I don't like playing defense. Like, I'm going to shoot down your little missiles.

Aaron 21:09

No, we're going to kill you. And there is work. I mean, on the original Patriot that we exported to Germany, I think in the 80s, there was work share agreements for German industry. So I don't think that would be the hindrance, again, from working with Raytheon and Lockheed.

Jeffrey 21:23

Yeah, you know, I'm on... No, you're right. It's funny. I participate in... IAWS has this really cool missile dialogue. It's a dialogue on missile proliferation. And I'm always... Someone in the meetings is like, are we sure missile proliferation is bad? People have... It's like, oh, we have to get this under control. It's like......

Aaron 21:53

I mean, you're going against time.

Jeffrey 21:55

Are we sure? I mean, I was all for heading this shit off 10 years ago when it was feasible.

Aaron 22:05

No, I'm with you. When I saw $4 billion being plugged into Arrow, I was like, just plug $4 billion into Long Range Strike. Yeah.

Jeffrey 22:12

Yeah.

Aaron 22:12

I'm with you on this.

Jeffrey 22:13

Yeah.

Aaron 22:14

I love it. Do a co-development program for the F-35 to whack a German cruise missile in there like the Norwegians did. Scalp on trucks. Yeah. Anything. Just – but get offensive strike into Germany and that would be how I would spend their money. But they didn't ask me. So here we are. Yeah.

Jeffrey 22:32

No. You know, they gave up their Pershings as part of the – as a side deal to the INF.

Aaron 22:39

Right. I mean that's the first thing where my brain always goes.

Jeffrey 22:41

So INF is off. They're entitled.

Aaron 22:46

Totally. And – What about the RS-26? Yeah, the Rupesh.

Jeffrey 22:52

Yeah, yeah.

Aaron 22:52

You mentioned that, yeah. And that's the other thing I can come back to.

Jeffrey 22:55

The Russians seem to have mothballed it. I think they were just evading – I don't know why they did that actually. That's a bizarre system. It made sense in the moment, but then they just gave up on it and I don't know why.

Aaron 23:09

Do you want to know what – and then we'll wrap up here. Do you want to know what my favorite part about all this is? What? We've given up the facade that European missile defense was against the Iranians.

Jeffrey 23:20

Oh yeah.

Aaron 23:21

Well, we don't care about hurting the Russians feelings anymore. So like that entire nonsense that was governing, you know, the European face adaptive approach and European missile defenses, it's like they're angled to the South, you know? And so like, and they are too slow to get Russian missiles to begin with. Well, it turns out PAC three can work against the Kinjal, right.

It can work against the Skander. We think, right. And it, Turns out that like, hey, SM-3 in a period of tension with the Russians is a – while not how I would spend my money, is an investment to defend against them. And you know what? I'm happy that we've just – I no longer have to talk about the Iranian extended range Shahab-3.

I don't care about that missile. Yeah.

Jeffrey 24:07

Cool missiles, but the Iranians are not going to be firing them at Europe.

Aaron 24:13

No, too many of them like to vacation there to bring sanctions. So they don't want to run their beaches.

Jeffrey 24:19

You're right. We can now squarely deal with the reality that NATO is rightfully worried about a conventional and nuclear missile threat from Russia. And that raises some really interesting questions about how much defense we want to play and, you know, how much is going to be offense.

Aaron 24:40

It feels like a Ranskuller back in the 70s all over again. Just dust off that typewriter and let's get to it. Do I have to wear a tie? No. Okay. No, you don't. You can wear a tank top like me. All right. I think we hit it all. If the Germans want to come on and defend themselves, the Arms Control Wong podcast is always open.

Same with the Israeli aerospace industry.

Jeffrey 25:02

But we have the gap. It's a gap.

Aaron 25:07

This is the gap. We've offended our 12 listeners in Germany. So to that, I apologize. We love your country. Spend your money however you want. Anything else you want to add, Jeffrey?

Jeffrey 25:19

No. No. No, I love Germany.

Aaron 25:21

It's a wonderful place. It is.

Jeffrey 25:23

I want them to buy. I want them to put scalp on trucks. Scalp on trucks. Okay.

Aaron 25:29

Off the rails as always. Maybe put scalp on rails. Patreon.com slash ACW podcast if you want to model what a scalp would look like on a train car off the rails or on the back of a truck or interact with experts who end up in the Washington Post and The Economist because it is the coolest place. On the planet for open source analysis on arms control, disarmament, and nonproliferation.

That's patreon.com ACW slash ACW podcast. $3 if you're a student, $5 if you're not. Jeffrey, say hello to your children, the listeners like them, and thanks for joining. Bye.