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Why Drones Could Be the Future of Missile Defense
An anonymous reader writes "With North Korea's failed missile launch Friday, it is clear many nations around the globe are attempting to acquire missiles that can carry larger payloads and go further. Such moves have made the United States and its allies very nervous. Missile defense has been debated since the 1980's with such debate back once again the headlines. Most missile defense platforms have technical issues and are very expensive. One idea: use drones instead. '... a high-speed (~3.5 to 5.0 km/s), two-stage, hit-to-kill interceptor missile, launched from a Predator-type UAV can defeat many of these ballistic missile threats in their boost phase.' Could a Drone really take down a North Korea missile? 'A physics-based simulator can estimate the capabilities of a high-altitude, long endurance UAV-launched boost-phase interceptor (HALE BPI) launched from an altitude of approximately 60,000 feet. Enabled by the revolution in UAVs, this proposed boost-phase interceptor, based on off-the-shelf technology, can be deployed in operationally feasible stations on the periphery of North Korea.'"
Not a drone, but the US Navy's Sea-based X-band RADAR (SBX-1) — a completely self-propelled (max speed: 8 knots), semi-submersible modified oil platform designed for use in high winds and heavy seas — is also part of the Missile Defense Agency's Ballistic Missile Defense System. It can track an object the size of a baseball from about 3000 miles away. SBX-1 sailed to the region to monitor the North Korean launch:
http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/29/navy-ships-out-radar-system-ahead-of-north-korea-launch/
A brief history of SBX-1 — great pictures: http://www.mda.mil/global/documents/pdf/sbx_booklet.pdf
It looks like that will be the new battleground.
We will be staring at a future where we have crowded areas outside countries where international law allows activities, but those activities are expressly designed to create a defensive blockade around a particular country. As the original poster has said, the cost for a semi-autonomous blockade is becoming lower and lower.
While I don't have sufficient understanding of international law, nor the science fiction authors that most likely have talked about these in the past. I expect a future where we have major battles, skirmishes and wars not about sovereign land and rights, but about operations within international spaces.
The endpoint I can see as one of two places. Lots of "badland" style scenarios where nations cannot operate outside connected national corridors, or rewriting of international reducing the international areas in favour of a larger buffer.
Our rock is now getting a lot smaller.
Missile defense, as the name implies, _is_ defensive. It gives _us_ the advantage, which is a good thing — unless, of course, you don't want us to have that advantage.
a guided missile is just a disposable drone?
The technical challenges and cost of BMD is mainly in the interceptor and tracking/targeting which has to be there weather launched from the ground or a ship at see or drone. Yes a done can be located near a country like DPRK and therefore hit at boost phase easier than intercepting further down range (Mid Course or Terminal) however this can be achieved by a ship off the coast in the same way using SM-3. Not sure the first stage of SM-3 is the complex or expensive part? ??
But, inevitable consequence of this would be to avoid the boost phase of ICBM. One way is cruise missile instead of a ballistic missile. The other way is to move the whole damned payload up into orbit. That would be a very dangerous development. Since countries with large area would not be at a big disadvantage here, this might be half decent solution against rogue regimes of smaller land area.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
You need to know where it is (difficult in case of a mobile launcher) and/or be able to penetrate a hardened shelter. Or a pre-emptive strike might not be politically feasible (clever dictators will build their launchers in the "nursery home and children's hospital" district) And if you wish to strike with when a launch is detected, you will need to have aircraft ready on CAP (continuous air presence). Dangerous and expensive with regular aircraft when your air superiority is iffy; but doable with drones.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
can defeat many of these ballistic missile threats in their boost phase
"Boost phase" means "shortly after launch," which means being close to where it was launched from, which often means violating their airspace. So your anti-missile technology relies on giving your enemy legal justification to fire to begin with.
Could a drone really take down a North Korea missile before it self destructs.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
So, how well will this drone system work against countermeasures? Like, for example, simply shipping the nuke to the target location?
--PM
The regime exists because of draconian internal control. It is not self sustaining, and gets the extra resources it needs (mostly food) by blackmailing the international community. The blackmail is not solely based on their nuclear capabilities.
For S. Korea and the US, conventional warfare is a meaningful threat. At a minimum the north could take Seoul, and it would be very bloody and costly to push them back to the DMZ. This could cause the collapse of the N. Korean state, so the leadership knows it is likely a suicidal act.
For China, a collapse of the N. Korea regime would be a nightmare, because of the wave of refugees that would pour over the border. They are currently dealing with a low level refugee problem with defectors, and it is a destabilizing force in their border area with N. Korea. This is how the regime blackmails China.
China also wants to avoid having a land border with a modern Western capitalist style state. A takeover by the south is the certain outcome of the end of the northern state, just like east and west Germany. Even with the Chinese embrace of capitalist economics, the Communist Party is still the sole source of political power, and they want to keep it that way. A functioning modern Democracy on a land border would be a direct challenge to their political legitimacy. China needs a functioning N. Korea.
None of this is directly caused by N. Korea nuclear weapons. The elite leadership knows that they would be personally doomed by the use of nuclear weapons. Even if they escape alive from the conflict that would follow, there is literally no place in the world they could hide.
Nuclear weapons in N. Korea are an bargaining chip for their game of blackmail. Without them the world world would not pay them nearly as much attention, so their ability to manipulate events would be seriously diminished.
Ballistic missile defense is a US political issue first and foremost. This has been true ever since Regan's Star Wars program. Despite all the money spent and all the claims, the chances that the system works is virtually zero. The "tests"that have been done are exercises in organized lying.
Remember the first Gulf War and the Scuds? After all the claims of success, the truth finally came out, and the Patriot system was a failure. The current versions are just as broken. How do we know this? Because the number of tests needed to prove a system like this is in the hundreds, or thousands. The number of tests they actually run is in the tens. And they are all rigged to succeed. Just think of how much testing they do on jets or other missiles. And if they did real meaningful testing, then potential adversaries could observe the results and have all the information they would need to defeat it.
So this done system is ultimately more DOD pork. Therefore, we'll end up building it despite the fact that it will be completely unreliable. A non-working solution to the wrong problem.
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