In just the last couple weeks, the Air Force has done some serious waffling on its controversial plan to use conventionally-armed Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles to take out terrorist targets. Controversial, because every ballistic missile launch — nuke or non-nuke — looks the same on radar, so every strike on a terror camp risks igniting World War III. One general said the plan was kaput. Then a senior civilian official said it wasn’t. A second general weighed in, saying he wasn’t sure yet. Thanks to an inside source, we have some insight into the apparent confusion. Who’s right? Well, possibly everybody.
According to our source, the basic plan to hit terrorist targets with a speedy, non-nuclear missile remains intact. The so-called “Prompt Global Strike” missile will be based on an ICBM, but it will only be partially ballistic. Under the current thinking, a modified Peacekeeper ICBM will boost an armed hypersonic glider to high speed and altitude, at which point the glider’s own momentum will take over.
“The concept of operations calls for the [Prompt Global Strike missile] to be launched along a trajectory that differs from that of a ballistic missile (they are planning on using a shaped, depressed trajectory) so it will look different to Russia’s early-warning systems.”
This idea for a non-apocalypse-starting, hybrid, semi-ballistic weapon helps explain how two generals and a senior civilian official could seem to contradict each other. In mid-February, Maj. Gen. David Scott said the Air Force had “no plans for conventionally armed sea-based missiles such as a [Navy] Conventional Trident Modification or conventionally armed ICBMs.”
“Our focus is on boost-glide capabilities,” Scott said, “including the Hypersonic Technology Vehicle concept.”
What Scott failed to mention is the Hypersonic Test Vehicle Glider could be boosted to its top speed and altitude by a Minotaur rocket, in essence a modified Peacekeeper ICBM without the nuclear warhead. “This is not the same as putting a relatively dumb conventional warhead on an existing Trident or Minuteman missile, hence the claim that we aren’t going to deploy conventional warheads on existing ballistic missiles,” the source explained.
That being the case, civilian official Stephen Walker and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz weren’t contradicting Scott when they said, several days after Scott’s comment, that ballistic missiles were still on the table for Prompt Global Strike. The ballistic missiles were never the entire solution.
That said, it’s possible some of the Air Force commentators were in over their heads in discussing the strike plan, our source added. “I suspect the Air Force guys who are speaking (with the exception of Schwartz) may not know what they are talking about, as the program remains under the control of [the Office of the Secretary of Defense] and [the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency] and isn’t really an Air Force program yet.”
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