Bargain Basement Ballistic Missile Defence

The official opening of a ballistic missile defence base in Romania was among the top news stories last week news on the worsening Russia–America “partnership.” To be precise, the Aegis Ashore Ballistic Missile Defence System was “certified” at the US Naval base in Deveselu on May 12, and it is now officially operation-ready.

The official opening of a ballistic missile defence base in Romania was among the top news stories last week news on the worsening Russia–America “partnership.”

To be precise, the Aegis Ashore Ballistic Missile Defence System was “certified” at the US Naval base in Deveselu on May 12, and it is now officially operation-ready [1]. Construction was actually completed a year ago, in May 2015 (having lasted 18 months), with the time in between being used to test Aegis and train the crews. A ceremony was held to mark the beginning of construction of a similar base in Poland on the very next day. The Polish Aegis Ashore will be located next to the small village of Redzikowo on the Baltic coast, 200 km from Kaliningrad. It is expected to become operational in 2018.

What are Aegis BMD systems? They are the basis of the Obama Administration’s so-called “Phased, Adaptive Approach” to creating the European component of the global ballistic missile defence of the United States and its allies.

The expensive programme that was being carried out during George W. Bush’s presidency, which was also poorly received in Moscow, was simplified. The Bush Administration planned to station GBIs (Ground-Based Interceptors) in Poland, perhaps the only modern U.S. ballistic missile defence component capable of effectively intercepting intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBMs). But now attention has shifted to the sea-based Aegis.

Broadly understood, Aegis is a combat information and control system (CICS), yet it is often understood as the eponymous ship-borne air defence missile system, which is the core of the CICS. Its specific purpose – intercepting anti-ship missiles – has led to the highest design standards in the creation of the system and exceedingly high modernization potential. It is not surprising, therefore, that in the 1990s, Aegis was primarily intended to be used for intercepting ballistic missiles.

Strictly speaking, the first stage in Obama’s “phased approach” to NATO’s ballistic missile defence was using Arleigh Burke-class destroyers equipped with latest version of the CICS software and SM-3 Block IA missiles (RIM-161B in military classification) capable of intercepting short-range ballistic missiles, and even intermediate-range ballistic missiles under favourable conditions. The ships were to patrol the European continent close to the most vulnerable regions (the eastern Mediterranean, the Black Sea), and in order to spare them additional trips across the Atlantic, they were to dock in the Spanish Naval Station of Rota. The DDG-75 Donald Cook, much beloved by the Russian media, is one of the “European” ships, which explains its frequent appearances off Russian shores.

However, permanent use of ships for European ballistic missile defence is not the optimal solution. It is expensive and it speeds up vessel depreciation. And the United States can hardly spare its destroyers. Besides, the Montreux Convention forbids ships from being permanently stationed in the Black Sea. And it is the Black Sea that is on the route of potential missiles from Iran to Europe. Paradoxically, stationing ballistic missile defence components in the Black Sea region, which appears to be a demonstratively anti-Russian action, is, in fact, a measure that is the closest to the official goal of counteracting the Iranian threat.

The solution was found quickly enough. If keeping vessels at sea is expensive and inconvenient, why not put them on land? The Aegis Ashore system is, in essence, a destroyer’s (or a Ticonderoga-class missile cruiser’s) bulkhead erected on land, with radar stations and even some semblance of masts with communication systems. The launchers of the interceptors are similar to ship-borne launchers and are placed nearby in containers; the Romanian site has 24 of them. Saving money is everything here: all the ship-specific components have been removed; where possible, power and communication systems have been replaced with cheaper ones (there are no restrictions on mass, which is not the case for ship-borne systems, and fail-safe requirements are lower). The buildings in the Romanian facility are easily assembled from modular units, and the U.S. “crew” on the base comprises about 200 people, which is 1.5 times less than the crew of an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer. Some of the crew members are civilians, who have to meet much lower requirements; consequently, they are much cheaper to employ than professional navy personnel. The combat crew for the system comprises three teams of 11 people each, which ensures the system is manned round-the-clock. Personnel will arrive from the United States and they will rotate.

Lockheed Martin
Aegis Ashore, Hawaii

The Aegis Ashore system is the first operational site after the test site in Hawaii. The Hawaiian site was opened in January 2014. The first test launches took place in May 2014. And in December 2015, the first “real” ballistic missile target was intercepted. The next – and currently the last – site should be the one in Poland which, it should be noted, will be more expensive and substantive than the one in Romania. At the very least, the buildings will be permanent structures, and not facilities assembled from modular units.

Currently, Aegis Ashore uses SM-3 Block IB (RIM-161C) interceptor missiles, which intercept intermediate-range missile relatively well, yet are still unable to intercept ICBMs, especially if their trajectory bypasses the system. When the Polish facility receives new interceptor missiles in the 2020s, it might be able to intercept Russian ICBMs on the extreme south-western trajectories [2], but this is far from certain. The Romanian systems are, for reasons of pure geography, unable to intercept Russian missiles, unless they are trained at, say, Brazil.

The assurances that NATO’s ballistic missile defence is designed exclusively to afford protection against the Middle Eastern threat are traditionally brushed aside in Russia, given the “Iranian deal.” But we should not forget that the deal might not be as solid as we would like to think, given both the chaotic changes in the region and the impending change in the U.S. Administration. Obama cut back on European ballistic missile defence. His successor might take another course.

However, Russian politicians have recently moved away from accusing the United States of undermining the potential of Russia’s strategic nuclear forces. Publicly proclaimed fears that the United States’ ersatz systems threaten the latest Russian ICBMs sound rather strange, especially when at the same time they praise the same ICBMs for being able to penetrate any ballistic missile defence. Currently, the principal complaints against Aegis Ashore are that the launchers can house Tomahawk cruise missiles instead of interceptor missiles. Despite assurances from the United States that the system can only launch SM-3 missiles, it is unclear how exactly these restrictions may be implemented since they have identical dimensions and launchers, and software restrictions are purely nominal and easily overridden. Despite the negligible military expediency of stationing cruise missiles in land-based launchers, which are extremely vulnerable, non-mobile, and small in number (Romania has 24 universal launchers, a single destroyer carries 90 of them), it affords Russia the formal right to accuse the United States of breaching the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. Mutual accusations of breaching the agreement are bandied around with increasing frequency, and some hotheads in the Russian Duma have proposed responding to yet another U.S. report by denouncing the Treaty outright. Besides, placing the Pentagon’s stationary military facilities in Romania and Poland deals another blow to the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between NATO and the Russian Federation.

On the whole, it should be stated that making U.S. ballistic missile defence components operational at the present moment, during yet another period of heightened tensions, will have more dire political consequences than military consequences, and they will be hard to predict. Even if we proceed from the assumption that these components indeed are not aimed against Russia, from the point of view of the United States it should be acknowledged that these actions are extremely untimely, since European security is threatened far more by another potential trigger in Russia–U.S. relations than by a rather tenuous threat of a missile attack from the Middle East. It will be very stupid and annoying if a couple of ersatz systems, which are significantly inferior to the dozens of destroyers and cruisers in the U.S. Navy, are the straw that breaks the back of the camel that is the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and leads to another missile arms race.

1. It is bitterly ironic that the military airfield in Deveselu that now houses Aegis was initially constructed by the Soviet Union for our “Romanian brothers”.

1. Russia’s land-based ICBMs’ trajectories when launched at U.S. targets go mostly over the Northern Sea and Scandinavian countries.