WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 (UPI) -- Last week's successful test of a U.S. Ground-Based Interceptor was a major step in America's "quiet neutralization" of China's nuclear deterrent.
StrategyPage.com analyst Harold C. Hutchison noted Sept. 5 that the test in fact had a more modest goal than the one it successfully achieved. "One thing to keep in mind is that this test was intended for data collection, not to test if the system could actually kill an incoming missile," he wrote. "The successful takedown was a bonus. The next test, intended to determine how well the system can pick out real targets from decoys, is slated for December. "
The U.S. Ground-Based Interceptor system is expected to expand to 18 deployed GBIs by the end of 2007, Hutchison wrote. The U.S. system "is already sufficient to have neutralized China's force of 24 DF-5" intercontinental ballistic missiles, he wrote.
"With the increased level of uncertainty about the success of the attack, China would very well decide not to launch the attack in the first place," Hutchison added.
Hutchison noted that the U.S. ballistic missile defense system is projected to deploy at least 38 ground-based interceptors by the end of 2009. This would give "the United States more interceptors than the combined Chinese ICBM and SLBM (submarine-launched ballistic missile) force," he wrote.
Hutchison added that the GBI force did not include the rapidly expanding force Standard Missile 3 interceptors that the U.S. Navy has deployed on board Aegis cruisers and destroyers. "At least 55 will be deployed by the end of 2009. China's force of ICBMs will be neutralized at that point," he concluded.
However, China still retained the capability to produce larger numbers of more advanced ICBMs in an effort to swamp the expensive, high-tech U.S. BMD system with them, he added. "China is building a new generation of ICBMs, and may decide to produce large numbers of them," he wrote.
USAF backs Raytheon on defense satellites
The U.S. Air Force plans to provide the Raytheon Company with $54 million to boost its Defense Satellite Program, All-Headline News reported Sept. 5.
AHN reported that the U.S. Department of Defense planned to provide $54,400,667 in funds "to investigate and demonstrate, via hardware test and evaluation, the viability of a full-earth sharing senor assembly to meet the threshold missile warning, missile defense objectives of the Defense Satellite Program/Space Based Infrared Surveillance High Systems."
The testing will also "provide performance data that can be used by the government to assess the risk of this approach for a future Alternative Infrared Satellite System, Engineering and Manufacturing Design program," the report said.
AHN said that the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., had a contract with Raytheon to complete the work within two years.
Japan follows through on BMD program boost
Defense Industry Daily has provided details of Japan's plan to massively increase budget spending on its ambitious ballistic missile defense program.
As previously reported in BMD Watch, the Japanese government of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi decided after North Korea's successful test of six shorter range ballistic missiles and its unsuccessful test of a much longer range Taepodong-2 on July 4 to accelerate spending and deployment plans of its anti-ballistic missile defense system being built in close cooperation with the United States.
Now Japan's self-defense forces and the defense committee of the nation's ruling Liberal Democratic Party want to push through a major boost in spending to finance that more rapid deployment, DID reported on Sept. 4.
Japan's Fiscal Year 2007-2008 budget plan "reportedly requests a 1.5 percent rise in overall spending, including 219 billion yen, up 56.5 percent from the current 140 billion yen appropriation for FY 2006-2007 (that year's budget request had been 150 billion yen)," the DID report said.
DID said the funds request was not just for ground-based interceptors, but that it also included "appropriations for an SM-3 long range naval SAM/ABM missile test from a Japanese Kongo Class destroyer, as well as funds to accelerate Japan's own fielding of Patriot PAC-3 SAMs/point defense ABMs to 2007 by buying U.S.-made systems on top of the PAC-3s expected from licensed Japanese production by 2008-2009."
DID also noted its own previous reports that the Japanese government plans to deploy three to four Patriot PAC-3 surface-to-air missile batteries at Kadena Air Force Base, in Okinawa, later this year.
The report also noted that under Koizumi, Japan had to a significant degree abandoned its previous, long-standing, reluctance to cooperate with other nations in cutting edge research and development programs. Its new "willingness to make outright buys abroad" was also a departure from long-established previous procurement patterns, the report said.
