Missile proliferation

Delivery options…• Nuclear, chemical, biological weapons need some means

of delivery– Terrorists may be satisfied with truck or boat– States will typically want reliable delivery by aircraft or missile– All 8 states with established nuclear arsenals have used both

aircraft and missiles for delivery– North Korea has active ballistic and cruise missile programs– Requirements for a weapon to be launched on a missile (small

size, ability to withstand missile environment, reliability) higher– Medium-range and long-range missiles not easy to develop

Missiles vs. aircraft

Category Aircraft better Missiles better

Cost to deliver 1-10 weapons x

Cost to deliver 100s-1000s of weapons xx

Payload x

Accuracy xx

Reliability x

Penetrating defenses xx

Need for trained, loyal personnel x

Short flight time/surprise attack x

Prestige/fear x

The V-2: an early ballistic missile• 320 km range• 12,500 kg• Warhead: 980 kg• 14m x 1.65m• 3,000 fired during WWII• Basis for post-war missile

programs in United States and USSR

Source: Wikipedia

What’s wrong with this picture?

Source: Steeljaw Scribe

North Korean missiles• Scud B: 300 km range• Scud C: 500-700 km

range• No-Dong: 1,300 km

range• Taepo-Dong-1: 2,000

km range?*• Taepo-Dong-2: 6,000

km range?*

*No successful flight tests

Source: GlobalSecurity.org

Iranian missiles• Scud B/Shahab-1: 300

km range• Scud C/Shahab-2:

500-700 km range• No-Dong/Shahab-3:

1,300 km range• Shahab-4: 2,000 km

range?• Shahab-5-6: ?• 2-stage solid-fuel?

Source: GlobalSecurity.org, CRS

Moscow building with enoughHEU for a bomb -- 1994

Source: DOE

Key technical challenges in making long-range ballistic missiles

• Propulsion– Liquid fuel: precision machining of wide range of parts, pumps, etc– Solid fuel: mixing, casting large solid motors– Staging

• Guidance– Small errors propagate to large misses at long ranges

• Reentry– Major challenge for intermediate and long ranges– Especially if reasonable accuracy is important

• Warhead– Miniaturizing for missile– Design to survive missile acceleration, vibration

Cruise missiles and UAVs• Between ballistic missiles and aircraft

– Not high speed, more potential for air defense interception– Can be highly accurate, highly trained personnel not needed

• New technologies – especially GPS – make high-accuracy cruise missiles far easier to build

• Most countries could build a crude cruise missile• Sophisticated cruise missiles (more difficult to build) can

follow terrain, in some cases evade defenses• Conventional land-attack, anti-ship, nuclear variants –

myriad other potential missions as well• Also covered by MTCR – but supply restraint may be less

effective than for ballistic missiles

MTCR and Hague Code of Conduct• MTCR

– Political commitment to limit missile exports– Focuses on missiles with range ≥ 300 km– Related production technology covered as well – agreed list– 34 countries participating– Complaints from non-participant states– http://www.mtcr.info/english/index.html

• Follow-on supplement: Hague Code of Conduct– Pushed by MTCR parties, launched in 2003– Also known as “International Code of Conduct”– Countries to exercise “maximum possible restraint”– 128 participating countries

INF Treaty• First major breakthrough at end of Cold War, 1987

– Banned all U.S. and Soviet ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of 500-5,500 km

– 2,692 missiles destroyed by mid-1991– Extensive on-site inspections (a first, laid groundwork for START)

• Concept of globalizing the agreement– Russia pushing for globalization – or threatening to abrogate– Globalization now joint U.S.-Russian stated goal– Successful globalization would ban the missiles of most

proliferation concern – very difficult for states to build missiles with > 5,500 km range

– What incentives would key countries of missile concern have to sign on?

Key challenges to missile nonproliferation…

• Spread of technology– Precision manufacturing can now be done in many countries

• Suppliers outside regime– Especially North Korea– Iran in the future? Others?

• Space launch, missile defense similar technologies– Creates incentive for countries to establish technical capabilities

• Cruise missiles, UAVs increasingly straightforward to build