Nuclear Reset - Program on Strategic Stability Evaluation (POSSE)

Chapter 9. Strategic Offensive and Defensive Arms199ballistic missile with an increased range is being developed for thispurpose, its range extended by adding to the mass of solid rocket fuel(increasing the diameter of the second and third stages by approximately1.5 times, from 34.3 cm to 53.3 cm).Stage 4 involves further modernization of the SM-3 (Block IIB)interceptors (capable of destroying ICBM warheads) before 2020.Meanwhile, modernization of the combat control and guidancesystem will continue at all four stages. It is anticipated that the enhancedvelocity characteristics of the anti-ballistic missiles will allowthem to destroy Iranian intermediate-range missiles and ICBMsduring the boost phase of their flight (using ship-launched Aegismissile systems deployed in the Mediterranean Sea).The decision has been made on deploying in Europe not onlythe ground-based version of the SM-3 interceptor (in Romania), butalso the X-band (centimeter-band) radars. Such radars could potentiallybe installed in Georgia, Turkey, or the countries of EasternEurope. In any case, however, such radar would remain an integralcomponent within a joint missile defense system covering the UnitedStates and Europe, which includes the radars in the ballistic missileearly warning system, and as such the entire system would be perceivedin Moscow from the point of view of the potential threat thatthey might pose to Russia’s nuclear deterrent capacity.In this regard, the analysis by U.S. and Russian experts of U.S. missiledefense system capabilities in Europe to intercept Iranian missilespresented in joint papers published by the East-West Institute 1is of great interest. In particular, it showed that the relatively highresolution of X-band radars (to 15 cm) allows them to detect boththe warheads and some of the decoys during the extra-atmosphericportion of their flight path, but they cannot reliably distinguish betweenthem. At the same time, even the relatively unsophisticatedcountermeasures available to Iranian missile specialists could reducea warhead’s effective reflective area from 0.03 cm 2 to 0.01 cm 2 , whichwould substantially shorten the distance at which warheads can bedetected. In the best case, if the number of X-band radar moduleswere increased to 80,000, then the distance at which the warheadswould be detected would be around 1,300 km, with the minimalrequired distance being about 2,000 km. On the average, 5 ABMswould be needed to intercept each Iranian warhead.There is no doubt whatsoever that Russian ICBMs and SLBMs(which have been developed over a number of decades and continu-