During the past 20 years the world has sur-vived at least four false alerts for nuclear war. Eachtime, space-based early-warning systems played amajor role. In three of the four false alerts, twoinvolving U.S. forces and one Russian forces, reli-able space-based sensors assured leaders that theywere not under attack when other systems indi-cated that nuclear annihilation was imminent. Inthe fourth, in 1983, a relatively new Soviet satellitesystem falsely indicated that the United States waslaunching a nuclear attack. All four cases show theimportance of both sides’ having reliable space-based early-warning systems.

Because of that need, Russia’s continuing eco-nomic difficulties pose a clear and increasing dan-ger to itself, the world at large, and the UnitedStates in particular. Russia no longer has theworking fleet of early-warning satellites that reas-sured its leaders that they were not under attackduring the most recent false alert—in 1995 when ascientific research rocket launched from Norwaywas, for a short time, mistaken for a U.S. nuclearlaunch. With decaying satellites, the possibilityexists that, if a false alert occurs again, Russiamight launch its nuclear-tipped missiles.

The Bush administration could help Russiaobtain and maintain an effective, economic, andreliable space-based early-warning system inboth the short and the long term. Such assis-tance would improve U.S. security by helping toprevent Russia from mistakenly launching anuclear attack. The primary measure initiated bythe Clinton administration—the Joint DataExchange Center—is inherently ineffectivebecause the Russians may not believe U.S. early-warning data. Instead, U.S. assistance should befocused on helping Russia to improve its ownspace-based system. Only then will the Russianshave confidence that no U.S. launches haveoccurred.

Joint early-warning centers can, however, havea stabilizing influence on the tensions amongChina, India, and Pakistan. New nuclear statesrun a substantial risk that their nuclear weaponsmay accidentally explode, perhaps triggering aninadvertent nuclear war. In that case, joint cen-ters—supplying information from the sensors ofnations not involved in the conflict (Russia andthe United States)—might prevent a tragic acci-dent from escalating into a regional nuclear war.

Reducing a Common DangerImproving Russia’s Early-Warning System

by Geoffrey Forden

___________________________________________________________________________________________

Geoffrey Forden is a senior research fellow with the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology.

Executive Summary

No. 399 May 3, 2001

Introduction

Six years ago, on January 25, 1995, theworld lived through what some observers havecalled the most dangerous moments of thenuclear missile age.1 Russian radars in Latviaand Lithuania detected a powerful rocketsomewhere over the North Sea. The missile’strajectory must have set off all the alarm bellsin the Russian nuclear command-and-controlcenter. The missile was following the same tra-jectory that a U.S. Trident missile would taketo mask a massive U.S. nuclear first strike byknocking out Russian detection systems witha high-altitude nuclear airburst. Fortunately,Russian commanders had access to a constel-lation of early-warning satellites that showedthat no U.S. intercontinental ballistic missiles(ICBMs) had been launched from the conti-nental United States. In reality, what wasdetected was a harmless scientific rocketlaunched from Norway. That early-warningcapability may very well have preventednuclear annihilation. Unfortunately, if anoth-er benign event sets off the nuclear alarm, theRussians no longer have that fleet of satellitesto reassure them.

The Clinton administration acknowledgedthe dangers the shortfalls in Russia’s early-warning system pose for the United States, butthe administration’s opening of a joint early-warning center in Moscow has failed to pro-vide Russia the confidence it needs to notlaunch a nuclear attack in error. Ukraine,Belarus, and Kazakhstan pose no such dan-gers because they gave up the nuclear weaponson their soil after the Cold War ended.

Consider what would hypothetically hap-pen if the same false alarm were to occurtoday: Just after dawn, the single survivingRussian early-warning radar covering Europeand the North Atlantic detects a powerfulrocket launched from somewhere off theNorwegian coast. The missile is headingaway from Russia toward the polar region,but it has a speed and an altitude similar tothose of a Trident missile. Furthermore, sev-eral objects have separated from the missile

at approximately the same altitude and speedthat a Trident would drop its expended firststage and nose cone. Russia has, of course,monitored Trident test flights and incorpo-rated those characteristics into its computerprograms. Those programs now project thefuture course of the missile to see if it repre-sents a possible threat.

Although definitely heading away fromRussia, the missile is heading along the sameflight corridor that incoming missileslaunched from U.S. ICBM fields would take.If the missile is a Trident, it could explode anuclear warhead in the upper atmosphere—blinding Russia’s early-warning and trackingradars. In the parlance of nuclear war, that isa precursor attack. At the start of an actualnuclear war, such a precursor attack wouldprevent Russia from knowing which of itsnuclear forces were being targeted in the ini-tial attack and which U.S. missiles had beenlaunched. Lacking those vital bits of infor-mation, Russia could end up holding inreserve missiles that are targeted by theincoming wave of U.S. warheads. Therefore,if Russia believes that a precursor attack hasbeen launched, a strong incentive exists for itto launch its missiles as soon as possible.

Thus, distinguishing a precursor nuclearattack from harmless events is paramount. Yetthe same reductions in Russia’s military budgetthat may have contributed to the sinking of thesubmarine Kursk have prevented Russia fromlaunching replacements for its early-warningsatellites as they age and die. Russia has had toprioritize its military spending, and such warn-ing systems—in today’s climate where thechance of nuclear war with the United States isbelieved to be considerably reduced—have beengiven a very low priority. Only two of the fleet ofnine early-warning satellites that existed in1995 are functioning now. For long periodseach day, Russia does not know whether or notthe United States has launched its land-basedICBMs. Furthermore, the breakup of the SovietUnion has placed most of Russia’s early-warn-ing radars on what is now foreign soil. TheLatvians—for a variety of reasons, including aneed to demonstrate national sovereignty—

2

Reductions in itsmilitary budgethave prevented

Russia fromlaunching

replacements forits early-warningsatellites as they

age and die.

dynamited the early-warning radar on their ter-ritory in September 1999. That action left inRussia’s coverage a gap that Trident missilescan fly through undetected until they explodeover Moscow. If U.S.-Russian relations contin-ue to worsen, the United States could beattacked because of those deficiencies inRussia’s early-warning system.

With many of its strategic early-warningsystems out of commission, Russia is left inthe dark except for information from the jointearly-warning center in Moscow. TodayRussian commanders would need to call aRussian officer manning that center and askhim to look over the shoulder of his Americancounterpart to see whether the American’scomputer screen showed any missile launches.But the data shown on the U.S. computerscreen—transmitted on a dedicated telephoneline directly from the U.S. early-warning centerin Cheyenne Mountain—have already been fil-tered to prevent them from indicating anypossible vulnerability in the U.S. early-warningsystem. The data could just as easily be alteredto mask any U.S. ICBM launches.

Would U.S. computer screens showing noevidence of a massive U.S. first strike beenough to convince Russian leaders that theywere not under attack? We can only hope so.But there are measures the United Statescould take that would allow Russia access toreliable early-warning information entirelyunder its own control. First, the United Statesmight pay for the launch of early-warningsatellites that Russia has constructed butapparently cannot afford to put into space.

Another possibility would be for theUnited States to cooperate with Russia indeveloping the next generation of early-warn-ing satellites. New sensors developed and test-ed during the joint research project couldallow Russia to deploy far fewer satellites thathad much broader coverage than does the cur-rent constellation. The Clinton administra-tion, after years of trying to tie that joint ven-ture explicitly to Russian concessions on theAnti–Ballistic Missile Treaty, finally removedthat restriction and let the project begin.

Both of those measures involve some sort of

financial aid to Russia’s military, freeing scarceresources Russia could then use for other mili-tary programs that the United States wouldfind undesirable. However, it appears thatRussia is not devoting any resources to improv-ing its strategic early-warning systems. If U.S.aid could be directed solely to improvingRussia’s early-warning system, the moneywould strengthen U.S. security in much thesame way as does U.S. financing of theCooperative Threat Reduction program (U.S.assistance in securing or dismantling Russiannuclear weapons that could be stolen or sold toterrorists or “rogue” states).

A Brief History of AvoidingUnintended Nuclear WarsThe Cuban missile crisis is the best-known

example of narrowly avoiding nuclear war.However, there are at least four other less well-known incidents in which the superpowersgeared up for nuclear annihilation. Those inci-dents differed from the Cuban missile crisis ina significant way: they occurred when eitherU.S. or Soviet or Russian leaders had torespond to false alarms from nuclear warningsystems that malfunctioned or misinterpretedbenign events.

All four incidents were very brief, probablylasting less than 10 minutes each.Professional military officers managed mostof them. Those officers had to decidewhether or not to recommend launching a“retaliatory” strike before possibly losingtheir own nuclear forces to apparent surpisenuclear first strikes. In three of the four inci-dents, the decision not to respond to thealarm was made when space-based early-warning sensors failed to show signs of mas-sive nuclear attacks. The fourth incident wascaused by an inadequate early-warning satel-lite system that was fooled into thinking thatreflected sunlight was the flames from ahandful of ICBMs.

As the brief history of those four incidentsmakes clear, space-based early-warning sys-tems played a major role in avoiding nuclear

3

The United Statescould be attackedbecause of defi-ciencies inRussia’s early-warning system.

war. During the 1980s, a few specialized arti-cles in the media hinted at the presence ofthose systems. However, it was only duringthe Gulf War that the American public trulybecame aware of U.S. capability to detect mis-sile launches using space-based assets.During that crisis, U.S. Defense SupportProgram satellites, first orbited in 1970,detected the launch of every Iraqi Scud mis-sile. The satellites made the detections fromtheir orbits by “seeing” the infrared light thatthe missiles’ motors gave off during poweredflight. The warning of launches was trans-mitted to Patriot air defense missile batteriesin Israel and Saudi Arabia to supportattempts to shoot down the incoming war-heads. The association with the fighting ofconventional war has obscured the moreimportant strategic role those systems haveplayed: reassuring leaders of the UnitedStates and Russia that they were not undernuclear attack. A review of the four nuclearcrises will better highlight that role.

The Training Tape IncidentShortly before 9 a.m. on November 9,

1979, the computers at North AmericanAerospace Defense Command’s CheyenneMountain site, the Pentagon’s NationalMilitary Command Center, and the AlternateNational Military Command Center in FortRitchie, Maryland, all showed what theUnited States feared most—a massive Sovietnuclear strike aimed at destroying the U.S.command system and nuclear forces. Athreat assessment conference, involvingsenior officers at all three command posts,was convened immediately. Launch controlcenters for Minuteman missiles, buried deepbelow the prairie grass in the American West,received preliminary warning that the UnitedStates was under a massive nuclear attack.

The alert did not stop with the U.S. ICBMforce. The entire continental air defenseinterceptor force was put on alert, and atleast 10 fighters took off. Furthermore, theNational Emergency Airborne CommandPost, the president’s “doomsday plane,” wasalso launched, but without the president on

board.2 It was later determined that a realistictraining tape had been inadvertently insertedinto the computer running the nation’searly-warning programs.

However, within minutes of the originalalert, the officers had reviewed the raw datafrom the DSP satellites and checked with theearly-warning radars ringing the country.The radars were capable of spotting missileslaunched from submarines close to the U.S.shores and ICBM warheads that had traveledfar enough along their trajectories to riseabove the curvature of the earth. The DSPsatellites were capable of detecting thelaunches of Soviet missiles almost anywhereon the earth’s surface. Neither systemshowed any signs that the country was underattack, so the alert was canceled.

The Computer Chip IncidentOn June 3, 1980, less than a year after the

incident involving the training tape, U.S.command posts received another warningthat the Soviet Union had launched a nuclearstrike.3 As in the earlier episode, launch crewsfor Minuteman missiles were given prelimi-nary launch warnings, and bomber crewsmanned their aircraft. This time, however,the displays did not present a recognizable oreven a consistent attack pattern as they hadduring the training tape episode. Instead, thedisplays showed a seemingly random num-ber of attacking missiles. The displays wouldshow that two missiles had been launched,then zero missiles, and then 200 missiles.Furthermore, the numbers of attacking mis-siles displayed in the different commandposts did not always agree.

Although many officers did not take thisevent as seriously as the incident of the previ-ous November, the threat assessment confer-ence still convened to evaluate the possibilitythat the attack was real. Again the committeereviewed the raw data from the early-warningsystems and found that no missiles had beenlaunched. Later investigations showed that asingle computer chip failure had caused ran-dom numbers of attacking missiles to be dis-played.

4

Early-warningsystems have reas-

sured leaders ofthe United States

and Russia thatthey were not

under nuclearattack.

The Autumn Equinox IncidentOn September 26, 1983, the newly inau-

gurated Soviet early-warning satellite systemcaused a nuclear false alarm. Like the UnitedStates, the Soviet Union realized the impor-tance of monitoring the actual launch ofICBMs. However, the Soviets chose a differ-ent method of spotting missile launches.Instead of looking down on the entire earth’ssurface the way U.S. DSP satellites do, Sovietsatellites looked at the edge of the earth—thus reducing the chance that naturallyoccurring phenomena would look like mis-sile launches. Missiles, when they had risen 5or 10 miles, would appear silhouetted againstthe black background of space. Furthermore,when the edge of the earth is viewed, lightreflected from clouds or snow banks has topass through a considerable amount of theatmosphere. That view reduces the chancesthat clouds and snow may cause false alarms.

A satellite has to be in a unique position toview a recently launched missile silhouetted

against the black of space. To get that view, theSoviet Union picked a special type of orbit thatit had used for its communications satellites.Those orbits, known as Molnyia orbits, comevery close to the earth in the SouthernHemisphere but extend nearly a tenth of thedistance to the moon as the satellite passes overthe Northern Hemisphere. From that positionhigh above northern Europe, the SovietUnion’s Oko (or Eye) early-warning satellitesspend a large fraction of their time viewing thecontinental U.S. missile fields at just the rightglancing angle. However, shortly after midnightMoscow time on September 26, 1983, the sun,the satellite, and U.S. missile fields all lined upin such a way as to maximize the sunlightreflected from high-altitude clouds (Figure 1).

Whether that effect was a totally unex-pected phenomenon is hard to know. Thatmay have been the first time this rare align-ment had occurred since the system becameoperational the previous year. Press inter-views with Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov, the offi-

5

That Norwegianscientific rocketincident caused adangerousmoment in thenuclear age.

Figure 1A Russian Oko Early-Warning Satellite’s Hypothesized View of the U.S. Missile Fieldsat the Time of the Autumn Equinox Incident

Source: The satellite’s position was determined using orbital parameters supplied by the National Aeronauticsand Space Administration.

cer in charge of Serpukhov-15, the secretbunker from which the Soviet Union moni-tored its early-warning satellites, indicatedthat the new system reported the launch ofseveral missiles from the U.S. continentalmissile fields.4 Petrov had been told repeated-ly that the United States would launch a mas-sive nuclear strike designed to overwhelmSoviet forces in a single strike.

Why did that false alarm fail to trigger anuclear war? Perhaps the Russian commanddid not want to start a war on the basis ofdata from a new and unique system. On theother hand, if the sun glint had caused thesystem to report hundreds of missile launch-es, then the Soviet Union might have mistak-enly launched its missiles. Petrov said that herefused to pass the alert to his superiorsbecause “when people start a war, they don’tstart it with only five missiles. You can do lit-tle damage with just five missiles.”5

The Norwegian Rocket IncidentEarly on the morning of January 25, 1995,

Norwegian scientists and their American col-leagues launched the largest sounding rocketever from Andoya Island off the coast ofNorway. Designed to study the northernlights, the rocket followed a trajectory tonearly 1,500 kilometers altitude but awayfrom the Russian Federation (Figure 2). Asdiscussed above, the flight appeared similarto one that a U.S. Trident missile would taketo blind Russian radars by detonating anuclear warhead high in the atmosphere.

That scientific rocket caused a dangerousmoment in the nuclear age. Russia waspoised, for a few moments at least, to launcha full-scale nuclear attack on the UnitedStates. In fact, President Boris Yeltsin statedthe next day that he had activated his“nuclear football”—a device that allows theRussian president to communicate with histop military advisers and review the situationonline—for the first time.

However, we can be fairly confident thatYeltsin’s football showed that Russia was notunder attack and that the Russian early-

6

Russia waspoised, for a few

moments at least,to launch a full-

scale nuclearattack on the

United States.

Figure 2Trajectory of the Black Brant XII Sounding Rocket, Which Set Off the NorwegianMissile Incident

Source: Author’s calculations of the trajectory from radar tracking information supplied by the NationalAeronautics and Space Administration.

warning system was functioning perfectly. Inaddition to the string of radars surroundingthe border of the former Soviet Union,Russia had inherited a complete fleet ofearly-warning satellites that, even by 1995,still maintained continuous 24-hour cover-age of the U.S. continental missile fields. Inthe early 1990s Russia had still managed tolaunch replacement satellites for its early-warning system as the previous ones diedout—thereby retaining continuous coverage.Because of those satellites, Yeltsin’s displaymust have shown that no massive attack waslurking just below the horizon.

Reliable Early-WarningCoverage Benefits

Both Countries The danger posed by those incidents was

not the unauthorized or accidental launch ofa handful of nuclear-tipped missiles but thepossibility that either country might misin-terpret a benign event—a computer trainingtape mistakenly inserted into an operationalcomputer or sunlight glinting off cloudsduring a rare lineup of the sun, earth, andsatellite—and decide to launch a full-scalenuclear attack.

Each incident caused officials to takesteps to solve a specific problem. After thetraining tape incident, the U.S. Departmentof Defense constructed a separate facility totrain operators so that a training tape couldnot again be inserted into the computer run-ning the nation’s early-warning system.Apparently, the Soviet Union launched a newfleet of early-warning satellites in geostation-ary orbit simply to provide a second anglefrom which to view U.S. missile fields. Thatexpensive and redundant system ensuredthat at least one satellite could search formissile launches free from sun glint.

After three of the four incidents, the U.S.government maintained that steps were takenthat would prevent any future false alarms.However, it had to wait only seven monthsafter the first incident (the computer tape inci-

dent) to see that complex organizations, rely-ing on even more complex machinery, canfind new and unexpected ways to fail. In fact,a comprehensive study of nuclear accidentshas shown convincing historical evidence that,despite measures taken to prevent them, suchaccidents are inevitable.6

The most recent example of solving the“last problem” was the Clinton administra-tion’s initiative to share early-warning datawith Russia. The jointly manned center hasbeen presented by the American side as asolution to the decline of Russia’s early-warn-ing facilities. Russians familiar with thenegotiations, however, maintain that the cen-ter has no military significance. That view isunderscored by the choice of the site for thecenter: an old schoolhouse nearly an houraway from downtown Moscow. In fact, U.S.Department of Defense officials familiarwith the Joint Data Exchange Center admitthat, even if the center had been active duringthe Norwegian rocket incident, its only effectwould have been to facilitate the launch noti-fication issued before the NASA launch.

Any assistance the United States providesmust increase Russia’s confidence in the valid-ity of its own early-warning systems. TheJDEC fails that test. Russia would neverbelieve that the United States would passalong launch indications if a U.S. nuclearattack had been launched. However, to deter-mine what U.S. assistance would actually helpimprove the Russian early-warning system, anunderstanding of the system itself is needed.

An Overview of the RussianEarly-Warning System

As they raced for primacy in ballistic mis-siles, both sides of the Cold War sought reliable,long-range early-warning systems. Prior to themissile age, the Soviet Union’s ground-based airdefense radars, with ranges of around 550 kilo-meters, provided sufficient warning of the rela-tively slow-moving strategic bombers deployedby both sides in the 1950s. Those radars werecapable of giving several hours warning of

7

Despite measurestaken to preventthem, accidentsare inevitable.

incoming bombers but could give only one ortwo minutes warning of incoming ballistic mis-siles—if the radars saw the missiles at all. Thenext decades saw both countries make rapidimprovements in the range and resolution ofradars and undertake expensive programs toincrease their numbers. But, ultimately, boththe United States and the Soviet Union turnedto space-based sensors to give the maximumamount of warning time.

Soviet Early-Warning RadarsIn 1957 the West first became aware of the

Soviet Union’s long-range radars when a U2spy plane photographed the Sary Shaganmissile test range in Kazakhstan.7 The radarfacility photographed on that flight was theprototype for the “Hen House” radar, whichhad a range of 6,000 kilometers. (The Westreferred to this system as Hen House pre-sumably because the long buildings that sup-ported the antennas were reminiscent ofchicken coops.) By 1964 the Soviet Unionhad added four more Hen House radars—twolooking toward China and the Pacific andtwo scanning the attack corridors of U.S.ICBMs and submarine-launched ballisticmissiles (SLBMs). Those systems could spotSLBMs soon after launch but would have towait until the warhead from an ICBMappeared above the horizon. That time peri-od could be anywhere from 10 to 15 min-utes—vital decisionmaking time that eithercountry lost when using that type of radarfrom within its own borders. In 1960 theUnited States started positioning its radars—the Ballistic Missile Early-Warning Systems—in Canada, Greenland, and England, anoption not available to the Soviet Union.

Both sides launched high-priority researchand development projects to try to increasetheir warning time of missile launches. Oneavenue for extending the range of radars is touse special radio frequencies that bend aroundthe earth’s surface.8 That type of radar is knownas “over-the-horizon” radar. In 1971, when itopened a facility in Belarus, the Soviet Unionstarted operating its first over-the-horizonradar aimed at the U.S. ICBM fields. Such

radars sacrifice the ability to measure distancesaccurately and are more susceptible than regu-lar radars to atmospheric disturbances such asthe northern lights. In 1973, to try to compen-sate for those deficiencies, the Soviets con-structed a second over-the-horizon radar on theeastern edge of their country. They obviouslyhoped that one or the other radar could alwayslook around the electronic noise associatedwith the polar region. However, by 1990 thatsystem proved inadequate and the SovietUnion abandoned over-the-horizon radar forlong-range missile surveillance.

By then, the Soviet Union had already start-ed to move its warning systems into space.However, the Soviets still had a use for powerfulstrategic radars. But by 1978 the Soviets weremore interested in the resolution of the radarsand were willing to sacrifice distance forimproved tracking ability. In that year theystarted to replace the aging Hen House radarswith a newer design. Those high-resolutiontracking radars became known in the West asPechora-type radars—named after the Russiantown near which the first one appeared.

Pechora-type radars operate in a range of theradio spectrum ideal for detecting and trackingincoming warheads. An unintended conse-quence of that choice of radio frequency is thatthe radars are unusually susceptible to beingblinded by nuclear bombs exploded high in theupper atmosphere—the “precursor” attack thatmust have been a principal concern during theNorwegian rocket incident in 1995. But theimproved tracking capability of those radars,which the Soviet Union intended to install in aring around the country, has two importantapplications. First, it can be used for ballisticmissile defense. In fact, the United Statesprotested vigorously when the Soviet Unionstarted to construct a Pechora-type radar inKrasnoyarsk province. The Krasnoyarsk sitewas a considerable distance inside Soviet bor-ders—a clear violation of the 1972 ABM treaty.The other nine Pechora-type radars were con-structed on the periphery of the Soviet Unionand were permissible under the ABM treaty.The original planned coverage of the SovietUnion’s Pechora-type radars and the actual cov-

8

Ultimately, boththe United States

and the SovietUnion turned tospace-based sen-

sors to give themaximum

amount of warn-ing time.

erage today are shown in Figure 3.Second, the improved tracking capabilities

of the Pechora-type radars gave the Soviets theability to assess an actual attack. That assess-ment involves projecting the paths of theincoming warheads toward their intended tar-gets and backtracking the missiles’ flight totheir launch silos. Such projecting allows mil-itary commanders to know which of their ownnuclear missiles are in danger from the firstwave of incoming warheads. Backtracking theincoming warheads could, in principle, allowthe Soviets to re-aim warheads previouslyaimed at now-empty U.S. silos. Thus theSoviets could avoid wasting missiles on thosesilos. However, even Pechora-type radarswould not be very accurate at backtracking thewarheads because of uncertainties in missilemaneuvers below the radar’s horizon.

The Soviets’ chain of Pechora-type radarswas never completed. Protests by the UnitedStates had the effect of halting the constructionof the Krasnoyarsk radar. In fact, since the fallof communism, Russian leaders have admittedthat its construction was a violation of theABM treaty.

Adding to Russia’s problems with earlywarning, several of the Pechora-type radars

that were constructed on the periphery of theSoviet Union are now situated in the newlyindependent states. That situation has been asource of conflict been the Russian Federationand those new nations. In fact, Latvia dyna-mited the early-warning radar facilities on itsterritory on September 1, 1998—creating a sec-ond large gap in Russia’s radar fence. Russiamust worry that the gap could serve as a newattack corridor for U.S. Trident II missiles. Thegap also contributes to the imperative torespond quickly to perceived threats.

Early-Warning Systems Move into SpaceThe atmospheric difficulties encountered

by the over-the-horizon radars helped driveboth countries to investigate space-based sys-tems. For instance, in 1970 the United Statesabandoned its over-the-horizon radar effortswhen it started to deploy geostationary early-warning satellites. Those DSP satellites wereactually the second generation of U.S. space-based missile detection systems. The UnitedStates first attempted in 1960 to orbit aninfrared-sensitive missile launch detectionsatellite, named the Missile Detection andAlarm System. Those satellites in low orbitreportedly used infrared-sensitive television-

9

The atmosphericdifficultiesencountered bythe over-the-hori-zon radarshelped drive bothcountries toinvestigate space-based systems.

Figure 3Planned and Actual Coverage of the Soviet Union’s Pechora-Type Radar Stations

Source: Theodore Postol, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, personal communication.

style cameras. However, because those cam-eras had very serious difficulties distinguish-ing actual missile launches from naturallyoccurring phenomena, the program wasabandoned in 1962.

In the 1970s the Soviet Union also startedresearch on space-based early-warning satel-lites. Initial efforts were focused both on tele-vision-style cameras similar to the failedMIDAS satellites and on primitive solid-statedetectors along the lines of those used in theDSP program. However, the Soviet television-style detectors were abandoned before the sys-tem was operationally deployed. But produc-ing space-qualified, solid-state detectorsrequires a number of well-developed high-techindustries, such as producers of high-puritysilicon wafers and high-precision photolithog-raphy, and proficient microassembly indus-tries. At the time, the Soviet Union was strug-

gling with all those processes. Russian expatri-ates familiar with the Soviet early-warningsatellite programs have stated that the solid-state sensors tested on those early flights wereabout 50 pixels long. In contrast, some expertsbelieve that the first U.S. DSP satellites hadinfrared sensors nearly 1,000 pixels long.

Those relative detector sizes have had anextraordinary effect on how each country hasused its satellites and on their ultimate capa-bilities. With detectors 1,000 pixels long, theUnited States was able to scan the earth’sentire visible surface from geostationaryorbit and segment it into squares one kilo-meter on a side. Thus, the system had to dis-tinguish the light of a missile’s plume onlyfrom the light reflected from clouds, ice, orsnow in one square kilometer. If the Sovietshad tried to view the entire surface of theearth, they would have needed to distinguish

Figure 4Satellites Launched into Highly Elliptical Orbit

Source: Paul Podvig, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, personal communication.

Note: The first three launches are believed to have been satellites without operational sensors.

10

Producing space-qualified,

solid-state detec-tors requires a

number of well-developed high-tech industries.

the missile’s plume from light reflected frommore than 14,000 square kilometers ofclouds—clearly a more difficult problem.

Faced with that problem, the SovietUnion traded global coverage, with a highchance of false alarms, for very limited cover-age of highly sensitive areas—the U.S. conti-nental missile fields—with a significantly

reduced chance of false alarms. (Of course,the autumn equinox incident discussedabove showed that there was still room forerror.) To accomplish that objective, theSoviets positioned their satellites in so-calledMolnyia orbits so that they viewed the areasof interest at a glancing angle. Thus, a U.S.missile would appear to be silhouetted

11

The autumnequinox incidentshowed that therewas still room forerror.

Figure 5Orbits of Russia’s Early-Warning Satellites in 1995 (top) and Today (bottom)

Source: The author calculated these ground traces using orbital parameters supplied by the National Aeronauticsand Space Administration.

against the black background of space. Pioneered by the Soviets, the Molnyia orbit

is a highly elongated trajectory with a pointclosest to the earth just 2,000 kilometers overthe Southern Hemisphere. But the orbit’shighest point—where a satellite spends most ofits time—is more than 36,000 kilometers abovenorthern Europe. Soviet communication satel-lites, by contrast, had their highest points overthe Soviet Union to facilitate ground-to-satel-lite-to-ground communications.

In 1984 the launches of early-warningsatellites into those highly elliptical orbitsreached a peak of eight in one year (Figure 4).A modest decrease in numbers of launchesper year subsequently occurred. However, in1995 the Soviets were still managing to main-tain nine working satellites in orbit.Presumably, an increase in satellite lifetimemeant that fewer launches were needed.

Russian scientists working on this projecthave indicated that that type of satellite nowhas a lifetime of around three years.

Since 1995, however, the constellation ofRussian early-warning satellites has deteriorat-ed significantly. Russia had a full complementof those satellites during the 1995 Norwegianrocket incident. Since then, Russia has notreplaced satellites often enough to maintaincomplete 24-hour coverage. In fact, assumingevery satellite—even those that have drifted farfrom their optimal orbits—is still working,Russian coverage has dropped to less than 17hours per day. In reality, the coverage is proba-bly considerably less. After all, Russia, and theSoviet Union before it, went to considerableeffort to almost daily realign their early-warn-ing satellites into a very precise formation tomaintain the best surveillance of U.S. nuclearforces. Today, the satellites have been allowed

12

Since 1995 theconstellation of

Russian early-warning satellites

has deterioratedsignificantly.

Figure 6History of Russia’s Geostationary Early-Warning Satellites’ Longitude

Source: The author derived this plot from orbital parameters supplied by the National Aeronautics and SpaceAdministration.

Note: The Soviets, and then the Russians, occasionally moved satellites. They did this most often to keep the posi-tion over the mid-Atlantic occupied. When a satellite stops actively keeping station, it is removed from this plot.

to drift far from those optimal orbits, presum-ably because they no longer function. (SeeFigure 5, which shows the orbits of Russia’searly-warning satellites in 1995 and today.)

Early-Warning Satellites in GeostationaryOrbit

The Soviet Union was very aware of theadvantages of putting sensors in geostation-ary orbit. Such orbits are so high that satel-lites in them take 24 hours to circle theearth—appearing fixed over the same spot onthe earth’s surface. Placing an early-warningsatellite over the mid-Atlantic would allow asingle satellite to constantly observe U.S. con-tinental missile fields at a glancing angle—asopposed to the nine satellites the SovietUnion planned for the highly elliptical orbitspreviously discussed.

Reportedly, the Soviet Union first testedan early-warning satellite in geostationaryorbit in 1975. However, that Soviet satellitelasted only a few months and then drifted offorbit because of the natural perturbations inthe earth’s gravitational field.

When the Soviets launched another satel-lite in 1984, they again placed it over the mid-Atlantic. In fact, that position was the SovietUnion’s, and is now the Russian Federation’s,highest priority position. The Russians havekept this slot nearly continuously occupiedsince that time. Furthermore, they havemoved working early-warning satellites fromother slots to the one over the mid-Atlanticwhen the satellite occupying that slot failed.(See Figure 6 for evidence of that movement.)

“Slots” in geostationary orbits are regulat-ed by the International TelecommunicationsUnion. Otherwise, radio interference wouldoccur between satellites if they were too closetogether and used the same radio frequen-cies. Also, command signals might be sent tothe wrong satellite. To avoid that problem,geostationary satellites are spread out inspace. Furthermore, radio frequency bandsare allocated to different purposes—fromcivilian communications to astrophysicsresearch to military uses. The Soviet Unionclaimed eight slots for early-warning purpos-

es, but it has not used them all. An analysis byTheodore Postol of the MassachusettsInstitute of Technology showed that all ofthose slots were situated so that satellites inthem could view important regions, such asWestern Europe, China, or the United States,at glancing angles.9 None of them is directlyover the United States—indicating that theSoviets did not give a high priority to lookingdirectly down on the earth’s surface.

Did Technology Drive Doctrine, or DidDoctrine Drive Technology?

Why did the Soviet Union, and nowRussia, place such a high priority on geosta-tionary satellites over the mid-Atlantic whenthey had another fleet of early-warning satel-lites also viewing the United States? The tim-ing of the first operational launch of a satel-lite into geostationary orbit gives an impor-tant clue. The first launch was just a yearafter the autumn equinox incident—whensunlight reflecting off high-altitude cloudscaused a false alarm. A reasonable inference isthat the Soviet early-warning establishmentwas concerned about repeats of such an inci-dent and decided to place a satellite in anorbit that provided a view of the U.S. missilefields from a totally different angle. Sunlightcould affect only one of the two satellite con-stellations at any given time. That mightexplain why the Russians have kept such anexpensive duplicate system running. Thistheory is bolstered by reports in the West thatthe first Soviet early-warning satellite in geo-stationary orbit had exactly the same designas the ones already in highly elliptical orbits.

There have been reports that a second gen-eration of early-warning satellites, designed tobe capable of looking down on the surface ofthe earth, is now being launched into orbit.However, conversations with Russian spacescientists familiar with those satellites indicatethat the satellites have only a very restrictedview. In fact, some Western analyses have esti-mated that a single new-generation satellitemight be able to view an area only the size ofthe North Atlantic. In discussions with theauthor, the Russian scientists maintained that

13

If another falsealarm occurs,Russia will be lessconfident that itis not underattack.

the satellites do not have to view the entireearth’s surface. Instead, they state thatRussian doctrine is to view only those areasfrom which the Russians believe a U.S. missilemight be launched.

Those areas of interest include the conti-nental United States and parts of the Pacificand Atlantic known to be Trident submarinepatrol areas. However, Trident submarinesare capable of launching attacks on Moscowand elsewhere in Russia almost as soon asthey leave port. That capability makes theneeded surveillance area far wider than thearea the Russian early-warning satellites canview at any given time.

The doctrine of expecting only massivenuclear attacks, which would include attacksby U.S. land-based ICBMs, was possibly validduring much of the Cold War. However, thedoctrine is becoming increasingly untenableas submarine-launched missiles make up alarge fraction of U.S. nuclear forces. Underthe START II framework, the number of U.S.land-based warheads will decline becausemultiple warheads on land-based missileshave been eliminated. Furthermore, U.S.improvements in conventional precision-guided weapons also reduce the need for theUnited States to launch its ICBMs during anuclear attack.

If another false alarm occurs, all those fac-tors will make Russia less confident that it isnot under attack.

Potential U.S. Assistancefor the Russian

Early-Warning System

The history of nuclear false alerts showsthat either Russia or the United States can betricked by a benign event into suspecting thatthe other nation has launched a nuclearattack. So far, global space-based missile sur-veillance systems have boosted the confi-dence of military leaders that they were notunder attack. Without that confidence, theymight have mistakenly recommended start-

ing a nuclear war. Therefore, the commoninterest of both the United States and Russiais to ensure that the other has access to reli-able early-warning information.

Today Russia’s early-warning system isfalling apart. The system provides far lessthan 24-hour coverage of the continentalU.S. missile fields. If some benign event trig-gers a Russian nuclear alert, Russia’s leaderswill not have the same confidence that theyhad during the 1995 Norwegian rocket inci-dent that a real attack is not under way.During some possible future period of ten-sion between the United States and Russia,they might launch a nuclear attack if anequally benign event caused them to go onalert. In fact, the expansion of NATO andU.S. plans to deploy national missile defensesystems has ratcheted tensions higher thanthey were in 1995. It is possible that justhelping the Russians overcome their early-warning problems might ease tensionssomewhat.

A number of alternatives are available forimproving Russia’s access to early-warninginformation. Economic difficulties thatRussia has faced over the last decade prevent itfrom having a reliable early-warning system.Short-term solutions should focus on over-coming those financial difficulties. However,technological difficulties drove the SovietUnion, and now Russia, to choose methodsthat reduced false alarms at the price of limit-ing coverage. The choices the Soviet Unionmade in overcoming those technologicalshortcomings have produced a system that isinefficient and expensive to maintain andlacks global coverage. Because global coveragewill become increasingly important, long-term solutions should focus on technologicalcooperation that produces cost-effective sys-tems to provide such coverage.

Joint Data Exchange Centers Do NotAddress the Problem

During a presidential summit inSeptember 1998, the Clinton administrationinitiated cooperation with the Russian gov-ernment on a program of shared early warn-

14

The history ofnuclear false

alerts shows thateither Russia or

the United Statescan be tricked by

a benign eventinto suspecting

that the othernation haslaunched a

nuclear attack.

ing. The program that has evolved, however,does not address Russia’s need for reliableearly-warning information. Instead, the pro-gram provides a room in which filtered early-warning data from both countries’ warningsystems can be displayed on computerscreens. Members of the Russian team canlook over the shoulders of their Americancounterparts to see what is being shown onU.S. computer screens. The U.S. participantscan do the same to see what is on the Russiancomputer screens. Because Russia would nothave confidence that an attack was not underway during periods of tension, that methodof cooperation is the least satisfactory.

As noted earlier, the Russians believe thatthe joint center has no direct military value.More important, the JDEC does not have adirect input into Russia’s command-and-control system.

Pay for Launching Russia’s ExistingSatellites

Russia has undergone at least a decade offinancial difficulties. Some economic ana-lysts argue that Russia is functioning in a“virtual economy.” The only companies mak-ing a profit are those that can sell naturalresources for hard cash to foreign buyers.11

Internal economies are run on a barter sys-tem, and most businesses avoid paying taxeswhenever they can. The reduced tax base hasproduced shrinking military budgets and anobvious reordering of priorities in militaryprograms. For instance, during the recent cri-sis surrounding the sinking of the Kursk sub-marine, it became known that Russia hadphased out its submarine rescue operations.Also, some analysts suspect that reducedoperating funds led directly or indirectly tothe sinking itself.

The Russian early-warning system hasalso suffered during this prolonged econom-ic crisis. The fleet of early-warning satelliteshas been allowed to fall far below the numberneeded to maintain complete 24-hour cover-age. According to Russian space scientists, sixcompleted early-warning satellites sit on theground waiting for launch into space. The

scientists note that the Russian governmentcannot afford to launch those satellitesbecause many other military programs havehigher priority.

The U.S. government could pay for thelaunching of those satellites. The launch ser-vices for five additional satellites—the mini-mum needed to give Russia 24-hour coverageof the continental U.S. missile fields—wouldcost roughly $160 million.1 2This option hasthe advantage of using Russia’s own satel-lites—in which Russia has complete confi-dence. Also, no risk exists of revealing anyinformation about the U.S. early-warningsystem that the U.S. government might con-sider sensitive.

Unfortunately, this option does notaddress Russia’s long-term early-warningproblem. Russia’s existing satellites—even ifthey are launched and do reestablish 24-hourcoverage—can only detect missiles launchedfrom a small part of the earth’s surface. In thefuture, as a larger fraction of the U.S. nuclearforce is deployed on submarines, Russia willneed a more global system.

Also, some observers might consider itinappropriate for the United States to fund aRussian military project. They could arguethat Russia has enough resources to launchthose satellites if only a higher priority wereassigned to doing so. Furthermore, as evi-dence that enough resources exist, they couldpoint to the continuing development ofadvanced Russian ICBMs, such as the SS-27.The Casey Institute of the Center for SecurityPolicy insists that no U.S. tax dollars be madeavailable to Russia as long as it is moderniz-ing its strategic forces.1 3

However, the advantage to the UnitedStates of improving Russia’s access to early-warning information—reducing the likeli-hood of an inadvertent nuclear war—out-weighs any assistance it might give to Russia’swar-fighting capabilities. The satellite systemsin question simply do not have the precisiontracking needed to make a quantitative differ-ence in a nuclear war. (This is precisely the rea-son that helping to rebuild Russia’s early-warning radar fence is not recommended.)

15

The United Stateshas an interest inRussia’s havingcomplete 24-hourcoverage regard-less of whetherRussia makesconcessions onthe ABM treaty.

The Clinton administration alsoappeared reluctant to provide financial assis-tance for launching Russia’s existing satel-lites. After the Congressional Budget Office’ssecond report to Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.)outlining that option, the Clinton adminis-tration did offer to pay for the launch ofthose satellites. When the administration didso, it made U.S. financial assistance contin-gent on Russia’s acceptance of modificationsof the ABM treaty. Russia, however, hasdemonstrated that other projects have ahigher priority than continuous early warn-ing. Russia is unlikely to decide to reverse itsobjections to the U.S. national missiledefense simply to get those satelliteslaunched. On the other hand, the UnitedStates has an interest in Russia’s having com-plete 24-hour coverage regardless of whetherRussia makes concessions on the ABM treaty.

Assistance for Long-Term ImprovementFuture Russian early-warning systems

must both be cost effective and provide glob-al coverage. Those requirements suggest asystem of three geostationary satellites, eachof which is capable of scanning the entire vis-ible surface of the earth from its orbit. Eachsatellite, however, must also avoid beingblinded or tricked by reflected sunlight—thereason for Russia’s expensive and seeminglyredundant early-warning satellite fleets.

U.S. assistance to Russia’s future early-warning system should focus on two aspects.First, we should continue our joint researcheffort with Russia—known as the Russian-American Observation Satellites project.RAMOS has had a long and stormy history.The program started out in 1992 as an effortto engage Russia in missile defense research—a goal to which it continues to contribute.But some of the research also has significantimplications for reducing the costs ofRussia’s early-warning system.

One goal of RAMOS is to test a new wayof filtering out reflected sunlight. If that lineof inquiry is fruitful, as many scientistsbelieve it will be, Russia and the United Stateswill be able to deploy satellites that are no

longer sensitive to reflected light, so theRussians will no longer need early-warningsatellites in highly elliptical orbits. Instead, asingle satellite in geostationary orbit over theAtlantic would give them all the ability that10 do today. Relying on three such satelliteswould result in global coverage, considerablecost savings, and presumably allow Russia tobetter maintain its own satellites.

About $340 million would be needed tocomplete the RAMOS project. However, theUnited States gets considerably more thanjust the vital improvement in Russia’s early-warning system. The research being done byRAMOS could directly contribute toimprovements in the troubled Space-BasedInfrared System—a low-satellite programthat is a component of the U.S. national mis-sile defense system. Furthermore, Russia hasagreed to launch some tactical missiles forRAMOS satellites to observe; those observa-tions should provide valuable data that theUnited States can use for its theater missiledefenses.

After several years of tying U.S. assistanceon RAMOS to Russian concessions on theABM treaty, the Clinton administration wise-ly decided to remove that requirement.Unfortunately, the administration viewedthe project as little more than foreign aid.RAMOS can contribute significantly to alle-viating the common danger only if its scien-tific results are fully exploited. But scientificexploitation funds for the RAMOS programhave been cut drastically. The funding is lessthan a sixth of what a previous space-basedsensor research program spent on science-related activities. For instance, millions werespent on collecting data during a preliminaryRAMOS aircraft experiment, but no moneyhas been allocated for analyzing those data. Ifthe trend continues, the United States willhave squandered hundreds of millions ofdollars for RAMOS and an excellent chanceto improve its own long-term security.

A second way to help Russia’s next-genera-tion early-warning system would be to allowRussia to import sensors and other compo-nents for its satellites from the West. Those

16

The benefits tothe United States

of Russia’s havinga complete

ground-basedradar system do

not justify thecosts.

components do not need to be state of the art.In 1970 the United States was able to scan theearth’s surface with large, solid-state infrareddetectors that were sensitive enough. Sincethen, U.S. satellites have progressed to moresophisticated technologies. Nevertheless,Russia would still benefit from importing alimited number of sensors with older technol-ogy. But to allow such sales, Western exportcontrol laws would have to be modified to per-mit the transfer of that technology.

Russia already has the scientific and tech-nological know-how to manufacture thoseolder components. What the Russians lack isthe industrial base needed to make space-qualified components. Western exports of thecomponents would not increase Russia’s man-ufacturing capabilities, which might then beused for other less-desirable military purposes.Instead, allowing Russia to import a limitednumber of solid-state detectors and space-qualified computers would merely bypassRussia’s decaying industrial base. In otherwords, both of the suggested avenues of assis-tance are basically financial assistance.

Why We Should Not HelpRebuild Russia’s Radars

Some observers might argue that theUnited States should assist Russia in rebuild-ing its ground-based early-warning radar sys-tems. That perimeter of radars has anincreasing number of gaps and will probablydeteriorate further if more of the newly inde-pendent states decide they will no longerhost a Russian presence on their soil.Although proponents of U.S. assistance forsuch an undertaking could argue that the aidwould provide additional confidence thatRussia was not under attack, the benefits tothe United States of Russia’a having a com-plete ground-based radar system do not jus-tify the costs.

Completing the radar system would pro-vide Russia with a marginal increase in confi-dence that no nuclear attack was under way,but it would not give the global coverage

needed to justify U.S. assistance in the longterm. Nor would it provide the narrowlyfocused coverage of U.S. ICBM fields neededin the short term. Finally, the Russian radarsystems have too much of a war-fightingcapability to warrant U.S. assistance.

Instead, the Bush administration shouldassist Russia in launching its existing early-warning satellites in order to fill Russia’sshort-term early-warning gap. Also, theUnited States should engage Russia in devel-oping a next-generation early-warning satel-lite, one that would be more cost-effective tooperate. These steps would improve U.S. secu-rity by reducing the chances of an inadvertentnuclear war without significantly improvingRussia’s nuclear war-fighting abilities.

Multilateral SharedEarly Warning

The Clinton proposals to include addi-tional countries in the JDEC either focusedon countries with early-warning technologiesor were general proposals to include anycountry in the world. But internationalagreements should be entered into onlywhen they solve real problems. Includingmost third-party countries would not solveany security problems either they or theUnited States face. However, the unique geo-graphical, political, and nuclear status ofChina, India, and Pakistan means that theycould benefit from shared early-warninginformation. Such sharing would add toU.S.-Russian bilateral nuclear stability aswell.

China, India, and Pakistan, the mostrecent nations to acknowledge the acquisi-tion of nuclear weapons, are too close to eachother for early warning to be meaningful intheir war-fighting plans. For instance, itwould take about six minutes for a Scud-typemissile to fly the 425 miles betweenIslamabad and New Delhi—about the timethe Pentagon’s threat assessment confer-ences took during the false alarms of 1979and 1980. In fact, real-time early warning

17

The unique geo-graphical, politi-cal, and nuclearstatus of China,India, andPakistan meansthat they couldbenefit fromshared early-warning informa-tion.

might prove destabilizing. If any of thosecountries decided to adopt a policy oflaunching its weapons on warning of anattack, it would not have enough time toproperly consider and eliminate theinevitable false alarms.

Surveillance of other nations’ missiles,however, can give those nations confidencethat they are not being attacked (as it doesthe United States and Russia)—especiallywhen an accidental detonation of one of itsown nuclear weapons occurs.1 4

India and Pakistan are relative newcomersto the problems associated with owningnuclear weapons. It is realistic for the threenuclear powers in the region, and in fact allcountries of the world, to worry that one orthe other country’s nuclear weapons are notsufficiently safe to be continuously deployedfor extended periods of time. The nearly 60years of U.S. nuclear weapons managementhas shown that deploying nuclear weapons isa dangerous undertaking. There have been anumber of accidents that have strained thesafety features on U.S. nuclear weapons andU.S. command and control to the limit. Thatno nuclear explosions occurred and that theaccidents involving command and controldid not cause an inadvertent nuclear war donot dispel the danger. Those incidentsshould make the world more aware of thedangers posed by deployed nuclear weapons.

The cause of an accidental nuclear explo-sion would not have to be design problems,though those too are possible. (It is known,for instance, that Iraq’s designs for nuclearweapons would have proved very unstable.Some UN arms inspectors stated that if theweapon had been constructed it could haveexploded if it had been hit by a bullet or evendropped off a table.)1 5 Perhaps even morelikely are accidents associated with deploy-ment. For instance, the United States has hadairplanes carrying nuclear weapons crash oraccidentally drop them. Such accidentsseverely stress any weapons safety features. Inat least two accidents associated with B-52s,the conventional high explosives—used toinitiate the nuclear explosion—detonated. It

is possible, and some observers might argue,even likely, that a partial nuclear explosioncould result. And in the heat of the moment,it might not be obvious that a subkilotonaccident was not a several kiloton attack.

Of course, either India or Pakistan, andcertainly China, might object that its ownnuclear weapons were safe. But each countrycannot be sure that all the nuclear weaponsin the other countries in the region are safelydeployed. For instance, if a nuclear explosionoccurs in Pakistan, India’s vital security inter-est requires that Pakistan realize that an acci-dental detonation has occurred on its soiland was not the result of an Indian nuclearattack. Otherwise, Pakistan might mistaken-ly launch a “retaliatory” strike on India.China’s interests are also served by India’sknowing that a nuclear explosion on Indianterritory was not the result of an attack.Similarly, Pakistan is well served if Indiaknows that it was not attacked.

Russia and the United States could miti-gate this danger on the Asian subcontinentby jointly providing missile surveillanceinformation to joint centers in all three coun-tries. The joint centers would not have toroutinely provide raw data, which mightreveal sensitive information about early-warning technology. Instead they could nor-mally provide the type of analyzed informa-tion the JDEC plans to exchange betweenRussia and the United States. Only after anaccidental nuclear explosion, as explainedbelow, would a limited amount of raw datahave to be provided.

Establishing confidence in the informa-tion provided is still key to the success ofthis measure, and that is harder than itmight appear. For instance, any of thosecountries might argue that, in the case ofan actual nuclear attack, both Russia andthe United States have an interest in notproviding confirmation. Instead, theywould argue, it would be in the U.S. andRussian interests to try to slow down theescalation by not showing a missile attackin the hopes that the countries could reachan agreement before an all-out nuclear war.

18

The United Stateshas a vital interestin helping Russia

maintain anearly-warning sys-

tem that coversthe entire globe.

However, if the United States judges thatthe dangers of an inadvertent nuclear war inthe region are greater than those of confirm-ing an unprovoked attack, it must accept theresponsibility of providing valid data even inthe advent of a real nuclear war. Fortunately,there are technical means that could providethe countries with the reassurances theyneed. One possible approach would involvegranting India, China, and Pakistan access toraw data in the event of an actual nuclearexplosion. The data coming down from thesatellite could be encrypted with codes thatthe three countries created to validate thedata’s authenticity. Because of the need toshow raw data to the countries in the region,the JDEC will not be enough. Hence the ded-icated satellite.

How would those joint centers improveU.S.-Russian nuclear stability? The centers inregional nations could be used to build con-fidence in U.S. and Russian missile identifi-cation software without revealing sensitiveinformation about the algorithms that eithercountry uses to identify the other’s missiles.In the original collaboration, U.S. andRussian space scientists working on RAMOSexchanged satellite images but carefullyavoided exchanging algorithms for identify-ing missiles. A follow-on experiment coulduse the information derived from the currentexperiment to build a single, advanced-tech-nology early-warning geostationary satellitethat would be positioned over the IndianOcean. (That satellite could have a field ofview restricted to China, India, and Pakistanand would not provide the United Stateswith additional early-warning informationon Russia’s missile fields.) In the new experi-ment, the two teams of scientists—each withclose ties to their own country’s early-warn-ing establishments but independent ofthem—could jointly develop software thatwould recognize Indian, Chinese, andPakistani missiles.

Building and launching such a geosta-tionary satellite should cost about $240 mil-lion—assuming the program, as the currentRAMOS experiment does, uses Western sen-

sor technology and Russian launch services.Costs to operate the satellite should runabout $12 million each year. Providing dedi-cated landlines for communication from ajoint U.S.-Russian downlink and satellitecontrol center in Far Eastern Russia to thethree centers—one each in China, Pakistan,and India—might cost about $1 million eachyear.

Conclusion

Almost inevitably, some future benignevent will be misinterpreted by Russian mili-tary leaders as a possible nuclear attack—especially if the incident happens during aperiod of increased political tension with theUnited States. When that happens, early-warning systems can play a vital role in pre-venting escalation into a nuclear holocaust.Therefore, Russia’s deteriorating early-warn-ing system poses a real threat to U.S. security.

The United States has a vital interest inhelping Russia maintain an early-warningsystem that covers the entire globe. Such asystem could provide Russia with the confi-dence that no attacks have been launched.U.S. assistance, however, should be narrowlyfocused on solving real problems.

The Bush administration could take aseries of phased steps to help Russia build upits own space-based early-warning systems.Concentrating on assistance that emphasizessystems built and operated by Russiansensures that they will have confidence in theearly-warning information. Furthermore, thesteps outlined in this paper do not riskrevealing information about current orfuture U.S. early-warning systems.

Washington should not help to rebuildRussia’s radar fence, which could pose a secu-rity threat to the United States, but shouldwork, with Russia, toward a system for shar-ing early-warning information with India,Pakistan, and China. Such a system wouldnot only guard against false alerts in thosenewly nuclear countries; it would also pro-mote U.S.-Russian bilateral nuclear stability.

19

Concentrating onassistance thatemphasizes sys-tems built andoperated byRussians ensuresthat they willhave confidencein the early-warn-ing information.

Notes1. Peter Vincent Pry, War Scare: Russia and Americaon the Nuclear Brink (Westport, Conn.: Praeger,1999), p. 236.

2. Scott D. Sagan, The Limits of Safety: Organiza-tions, Accidents, and Nuclear Weapons (Princeton,N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995), pp. 228–31.

3. Much of the description of this incident comesfrom ibid., p. 231, and from Gary Hart and BarryGoldwater, “Recent False Alerts from the Nation’sMissile Attack Warning System,” Report to theSenate Committee on Armed Services, October 9,1980, pp. 5–9.

4. David Hoffman, “Russia’s Myopic MissileDefense,” Washington Post, February 10, 1999, p. A1.

5. David Hoffman, “I Had a Funny Feeling in MyGut,” Washington Post, February 10, 1999, p. A19.

6. Sagan, p. 267.

7. Steven J. Zaloga, Soviet Air Defense Missiles: Design,Development, and Tactics (London: Jane’s Informa-tion Group, 1989), p. 125.

8. Matthew Partan, “Soviet Assessments of U.S.

Early Warning Technology Programs,” Center forInternational Studies, MIT, Research Report no.86-1, 1986, p. 38.

9. Theodore Postol, Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology, personal communication.

10. Ibid.

11. Clifford Gaddy and Barry Ickes, “Russia’sVirtual Economy,” Foreign Affairs 77, no. 5(September–October 1998): 53–67.

12. Geoffrey Forden, “Letter to the Honorable TomDaschle on Further Options to Improve Russia’sAccess to Early Warning Information,” Congres-sional Budget Office, August 1998, pp. 1–14.

13. Casey Institute of the Center for SecurityPolicy, “As Expected, Russia Gets a Bail-Out—ButIt Won’t Get Moscow through Next Year, orProtect U.S. Security Interests,” Perspective, no. 98-C 128 (July 1998): 1–3.

14. Scott D. Sagan and Kenneth N. Waltz, TheSpread of Nuclear Weapons, 2d ed. (New York: W. W.Norton, forthcoming 2001).

15. Gary Milhollin, “Building Saddam Hussein’sBomb,” New York Times Magazine, March 8, 1992,p. 32.

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