Inside The Pentagon June 27, 2002 Pg. 1 Pentagon Eyes Bunker-Busting Conventional Ballistic Missile For Subs The Pentagon is taking initial steps to develop a conventional submarine-launched ballistic missile that could penetrate hardened underground targets, like command and control bunkers and storage sites found in Iraq and North Korea, according to Defense Department sources and documents. The new "penetrator" weapon would be based on the Navy's premier Trident D-5 nuclear missile, swapping out the front end so the weapon could destroy a target conventionally only after it has burrowed deep into rock and reinforced concrete, according to defense officials. Launched from a stealthy submarine, the strategic-range missile's flight time to target would be measured in minutes. That means a fleeting target -- like a suspected terrorist's temporary hideout halfway around the globe -- might be destroyed very quickly after a sub receives the order to shoot. The new weapon, if produced, could make good on President Bush's desire "to be ready for pre-emptive action when necessary," as he said in a June 1 speech at West Point. But the effort to develop such a weapon may prove highly controversial. Defense strategists and diplomats worry the launch of a conventional D-5 missile from a submerged sub could easily be misinterpreted by other nuclear powers, like Russia or China, as a launch of its clone, the nuclear D-5. The nuclear Trident D-5 is perhaps the most fearsome weapon in the U.S. arsenal because of its ability to attack multiple, hardened targets in a knock-out punch. Each of 18 Ohio-class Trident submarines carry 24 D-5 long-range missiles, and each of those is loaded with up to eight re-entry vehicles that can be independently targeted. In the first minutes when foreign satellites or radars detect a U.S. submarine's missile launch, potential nuclear adversaries may assume the worst: that the missile is nuclear-armed and headed their way. Alarm about the imminent possibility of doomsday may prompt a foreign leader to launch his own nuclear weapon -- or weapons -- before coming under attack, the thinking goes. Pentagon officials are cognizant of the risks and are weighing the trade-offs seriously, one defense official told Inside the Pentagon last week. Such questions are part of a summer study the Defense Department is conducting as it prepares its fiscal year 2004 budget plan, the official said. Seed money However, the Bush administration has already requested funds to lay the groundwork for the conventional sub-launched weapon in the FY-03 budget now under consideration on Capitol Hill. As part of the Defense Emergency Response Fund the federal government crafted for fighting the war on terrorism after Sept. 11, the Pentagon has asked for $30 million to begin a "three-year effective enhancement" effort to "demonstrate a near-term capability to steer a sea-launched ballistic missile warhead to GPS-like accuracy," according to explanatory budget materials obtained by ITP. The latter reference is to the Global Positioning System, which allows modern conventional weapons a high level of accuracy that, in some cases, can substitute for a nuclear weapon's massive firepower in effectively destroying a target. The Pentagon budget document says already-developed electronics and instrumentation can be added as an extension to the tail of the D-5's re-entry vehicle, along with new control surfaces for steering. A Navy official said the technology development would apply to the D-5 re-entry vehicle regardless of payload, and emphasized that the service has not at all committed itself to developing or building a conventional variant of the D-5. But the Pentagon would not be pursuing such an accuracy improvement to the D-5 at this time absent the end goal of a conventional ballistic missile, said one defense official. "I'm holding the technology investment standards to a measure consistent with conventional payloads," the official told ITP this week. The D-5 research and development program is to fulfill a requirement for "hardened target munitions" laid out in the Pentagon's recent Nuclear Posture Review, the budget materials state. The review, whose classified contents were excerpted in the news media, stated that in FY-03 the Defense Department would begin "to explore concepts for a new strike system that might arm the converted SSGNs" -- four of the Navy's 18 Ohio-class ballistic-missile-carrying submarines. "Desired capabilities for this new strike weapon include timely arrival on target, precision and the ability to be retargeted rapidly." The Navy's public plans to date have been to convert these four Trident submarines so they could launch conventional Tomahawk cruise missiles instead of D-5 nuclear ballistic missiles. But the Tomahawk's range is only about 1,000 miles, just a quarter of the D-5's 4,000-plus mile reach. And although the SSGN conversion has not even begun, voices are already rising to convert the Navy's remaining Ohio-class subs to carry some conventional D-5 ballistic missiles for long-range strike against underground targets, in addition to their nuclear payload. "The strategic submarine's nuclear-only arsenal . . . limits its ability to deter non-nuclear threats," writes Navy Cmdr. Ken Perry, commanding officer of the Pennsylvania, a D-5-carrying sub not slated to get the Tomahawks. He penned an article in the June issue of the U.S. Naval Institute's Proceedings, advocating the idea of putting conventional D-5s on subs. "We are not going to launch a strategic nuclear missile in response to a tactical terrorist strike, and the terrorists know it," the sub commander writes. Perry, who was unavailable for interview this week, suggests a conventional D-5 missile fits well into Bush's emerging strategy, which calls for pre-emptive military strikes, in some cases, to prevent attacks against the United States or its allies. "For the 14 Ohios not planned for conversion, adding conventional warheads to their existing D-5 missiles will help realize their potential as broad-spectrum strategic deterrents and add valuable combat capability in an area of heightened interest," he writes. "If North Korea were to load a Taepo Dong tactical missile on its launcher, for example, a Trident missile with a conventional warhead could be the U.S. action to defend itself and regional allies." But Pentagon officials hope to go even further in developing the new weapon, describing in budget documents a D-5 that would be optimized for penetrating below the earth's surface. The effort to modify the D-5 would draw off of existing technologies demonstrated over the past two years in a joint Navy-Army effort called "Tactical Missile System - Penetrator," or TACMS-P, defense officials tell ITP. Under that initiative, the services are taking the booster from an Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS, and fitting it with a precision re-entry system and a penetrator warhead, according to Pentagon officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The Army-led TACMS-P developmental effort is expected to run through early 2004, culminating in a full system demonstration. At the same time, the Pentagon is requesting $55 million in FY-03 to extend the TACMS-P's range. It is unclear how long it might take to apply the technology to the much longer-range D-5, but officials are hopeful they could soon see a prototype that could be used, if necessary, in the war on terrorism. Vexing targets We are "trying not to reinvent any wheels" in the effort to build a conventional D-5 penetrator, said one Pentagon official last week. Shadowy terrorist networks like al Qaeda lack the obvious targets posed by traditional nation-states, meaning Pentagon officials must "do all that we can do by way of [developing] concepts" for putting these adversaries at risk, the official said. The Nuclear Posture Review, which the Pentagon submitted to Congress Dec. 31 and partially briefed to the media in early January, describes the existence of hard and deeply buried targets as a particularly vexing military problem. More than 1,400 underground facilities worldwide are believed to house strategic military assets, including weapons of mass destruction, ballistic missiles or command and control for top leaders, according to the classified review. Such underground targets "are generally the most difficult to defeat because of the depth of the facility and the uncertainty of the exact location," states the review. "At present the United States lacks adequate means to deal with these strategic facilities." Even the nuclear arsenal does not adequately threaten some of these targets, the review states, and nuclear weapons with large yields carry the penalty of damaging nearby structures and spreading radioactive fallout, according to the Nuclear Posture Review. "In general, current conventional weapons can only 'deny' or 'disrupt' the functioning of [hard and deeply buried targets] and require highly accurate intelligence and precise weapon delivery -- a degree of accuracy and precision frequently missing under actual combat conditions," the document states. "Similarly, current conventional weapons are not effective for the long-term physical destruction of deep, underground facilities." The posture review reflects the administration's interest in developing more effective conventional weapons that can produce strategic effects. "Non-nuclear strike capabilities may be particularly useful to limit collateral damage and conflict escalation," the review reads. Conventional weapons may also prove a more credible deterrent to U.S. adversaries, in that they lack the stigma of nuclear weapons and are thus eminently "usable," military experts say. The right weapon? Yet, might their very use precipitate a nuclear war? When a Russian or Chinese satellite detects a sudden ballistic missile launch from the middle of the ocean, how could those nations be certain a nuclear missile was not on its way? "Imagine you're somewhere in the vicinity of where this missile is being aimed, and say you weren't always friends with the United States," said one senior military officer interviewed this week on condition of anonymity. "Wouldn't you have some concern about the payload and destination?" Even if such an incident does not provoke a nuclear response, it "certainly" has the potential to cause alarm, this source said. "That would be an important consideration in exploring this approach," the officer concluded. "It's like pulling out a pistol and saying to the person you point it at, 'These are blanks, believe me,'" said one former high-level State Department official, also speaking on background this week. "If it were your parents, they might believe you. But if it were someone you'd had fights with in the past, it might be different." "We are uncovering all those leaves and rocks" in the Pentagon's summer review, triggered by the recently completed Defense Planning Guidance, responded one defense official. "If it appears there are more problems and risks than benefits, we'll work this all out." Were the Navy submarines subject to greater visibility or foreign inspection, potential trigger fingers might not be so itchy, experts say. But the Navy has traditionally rejected subjecting its submerged service to greater transparency, saying the submarine's stealthiness is the very means by which the naval ballistic missile fleet remains secure. For that reason, some defense analysts say land-based ballistic missiles may lend themselves more to conversion over to conventional weapons. Advocates say conventional intercontinental ballistic missiles could be inspected by the Russians or Chinese and remain in fixed sites, such that their launch would not prompt undue anxiety in those nations. A land-based conventional ballistic missile is one among several solutions the Pentagon is looking at, says Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. John Jumper. "Why do you put the thermobaric bomb in the mouth of a cave when you could send a Mach 40 depleted uranium 'blivet' into it and take the whole mountain away, from high enough altitude?" Jumper said at an event on Capitol Hill last week. The answer "might be a conventional -- even a non-fuzed, non-explosive -- solution," he said. "If it goes fast enough, at Mach 40 you can hit something with Quaker Puffed Wheat and do a pretty good amount of damage." Jumper may have a point. In August 1995, the Air Force tested a non-nuclear ballistic missile, guided by an inertial measurement unit and fitted with a pointy penetrator front end, against a rocky target. The test range aimpoint was a deep slab of granite, a rock known for its hardness and similar to a very hard reinforced concrete facility, scientists said. Entering at almost a 90-degree angle, the missile penetrated through 30 feet of the rock. If the missile had been optimized for weight, speed and shape, it could have burrowed much more deeply, service officials said (ITP, May 16, 1996, p5). Still, this concept offers challenges as well. Experts say ICBMs launched from current bases in the Midwest would drop their first missile stage over America's heartland or Canada -- perhaps an acceptable price to be paid in the context of a nuclear war, but unlikely to gain popular support in conventional weapons launches. As a result, conventional ICBMs might require new basing on U.S. coasts. Additionally, land-based ballistic missiles lack some of the flexibility of their submarine counterparts. A sub can be maneuvered to allow its missile to attack a target at an optimal angle. In contrast, an ICBM's trajectory may not allow it to threaten all underground targets, particularly those on the opposite side of a mountain face. Air Force spokeswoman Maj. Angela Billings said this week that since studying the conventional ICBM concept in 1997 and 1998, the service has not included funding in its budget to further develop such a weapon. Still, she said, it remains "one of many potential solutions the Air Force is considering for hard and deeply buried targets." Fast reaction The Navy may well prove quicker on its feet in addressing this thorny target set. The Ohio-class missile launchers, argues submarine commander Perry, "can be on station essentially year round, holding potential terrorist and other aggressors at risk around the clock and around the world." Yet for some, the first idea out on the street may not necessarily be the best one. "We are entering a different world where a new threat is defining a new doctrine," said the former State Department official. "And a new search for missions is defining what we build." The massive budget increases for defense since Sept. 11 may make the services even hungrier for more bites of the funding pie, the former high-level official suggested. "Do we really need this [particular weapon] in our arsenal?" asked the official, noting this may be an indication the Navy is in search of a new mission for its Trident submarines, now that the Cold War is over and the utility of nuclear weapons is further receding. With Bush's fledgling strategy against terrorists and the nations that support them, the services may already be jockeying to "get into this pre-emptive approach," the official observed. Bruce Blair, president of the non-profit Center for Defense Information in Washington, called the desire to convert from the nuclear to the conventional generally a "good sign." Blair, a former Air Force missile launch officer, said he sees a "dominant trend" toward increasingly accurate and small conventional weapons substituting for nuclear missiles, which are now widely viewed as unusable. But during the transition, serious risks exist, he said. The Russian command and control system remains largely the same as it was at the height of the Cold War, according to Blair. If any "D-5 missile is fired from a Trident sub in any ocean, it will trigger a Russian response," he said. "Procedures [are] still in place that alert the Russian leadership about an impending nuclear attack and prepare for a possible nuclear response." Even if a given Trident submarine carried only conventional D-5s, its launch from a patrol area from which nuclear D-5s might be launched could set in motion a disastrous chain of events, he said. "It would grab the attention of the world, wouldn't it?" Blair said. -- Elaine M. Grossman