Is anybody else noticing the buzz around conventionally-armed ICBMs?
Lance Lord told a National Defense University Foundation Congressional breakfast seminar that he was exploring “future uses” for ICBMs and called for “changing the professional mind-set.”
The conventionally-armed ICBM debate started heating up back in early 2004. In January, then-DTRA Director Stephen Yonger told the Precision Strike Association’s Winter Roundtable:
Five years ago if you went to Strategic Command and said, ‘What about putting advanced conventional weapons on the end of ballistic missiles?’ you would not have gotten a very favorable reception. I know because I did that. That has shifted. We are taking a fundamentally new look—a clean-sheet-of-paper look—at what to do when we need to defense the country from a strategic perspective.
Then the Defense Science Board Task force on Future Strategic Strike Forces (February 2004) recommended that the Air Force “preserve 50 Peacekeeper ICBMs currently being deactivated, and redeploy them to Vandenberg and Cape Canaveral for use with conventional warheads.”
There is some evidence that General James Cartwright—Combatant Commander for US Strategic Command—is thinking along these lines. He certainly left the option in open is his most recent Congressional testimony.
Proponents argue that advances in precision strike are making conventionally-armed ICBMs at least technologically plausible. The Common Aero Vehicle mated to an ICBM would offer an inexpensive and prompt option to strike anywhere in the world from the safety of CONUS. The classic comparison is to model the ElDorado Canyon operation against Libya with CAV payloads. The slide pictured below is from a presentation by Matt Bille (ANSER) and Major Rusty Lorenz (AFSPC/DRM) at the NDIA Missile and Rockets Symposium and Exhibition:
Two think tanks—NIPP and CSBA—have published studies advocating conventional warheads for ballistic missiles:
- Eric Miller, The Future of Ballistic Missiles (National Institute of Public Policy, October 2003).
- Barry Watts, Moving Forward on Long-Range Strike (Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, September 2004).
So, what’s the big deal?
Objections to this point have focused on developing a suitable concept of operations (CONOPS) for the use of conventional ICBMs.
One problem is that ICBMs launched from Vandenberg and Canaveral toward certain, um, states of concern might drop their first and second stages over populated areas in the United States. That would suck. A second problem relates to the terminal phase of the missile’s flight, which may result in an RV violating the airspace of, or the third stage falling on, a third country.
Perhaps more serious is the concern that Russia or China might misconstrue the launch of an ICBM for a pre-emptive US attack. Congressional Appropriators, in the FY 2006 Conference Report, expressed this concern and restricted use of the funds for CAV to “non-weapons related research” pending a report from the Secretary of Defense.
Such practical, non-partisan problems have—so far—tempered Congressional enthusiasm for conventionally-armed ICBMs.