Missile Envy & its Containment

Pacts at the very best are like a beautiful woman or a flower — and last only as long as they last — and no more.
G. Pompidou
President French Republic.

Columnist Col (Retd) EAS BOKHARI studies the impact of missile proliferation.

A missile is a seductive weapon and a political clout and to some extent a sort of deterrent. A missile carries about it an aura of secrecy and perhaps romance which are absent from other weapons of war and hence there is missile envy around the world. Currently any country which has a reasonable engineering infrastructure has succeeded in fabricating missiles, of course mostly through the methodology of ‘reverse engineering’.
Missiles have the drawback of being rather expensive and often the same destructive job can be done by heavier guns and aeroplanes without losing them in battle. Unfortunately, an expensive missile once launched cannot be retraced back.
Perhaps the first missile man had was his own hand, but with the rapid advancement in technology some highly sophisticated missiles have been fabricated with enormous ranges and gargantuan pay loads. These also have highly sophisticated guidance systems which produce a very small CEP (Circular Error of Probability). Some like the Cruise Missiles have multiple modes of guidance catering for variety of terrain conditions. (All this guidance being provided automatically ‘on’ the missile itself). Such missiles were successfully used by the US troops against Iraqi targets in the 1991 Gulf War and against Taliban in Afghanistan recently.
And then again the missiles have a certain amount of masculinity and virility about them. Just consider the following statements:
General Patton described war as “the cataclysmic ecstasy of violence”, this is not a very human description of war. And look at this US stance, of the World War-I era, terribly militaristic isn’t it!
“ Universal military training means more than national safety and defence. It means national health, national virility ... There is not a weakness in American life that it would not strengthen....”
A Spanish saying goes “... When a nation shows a civilized horror of war, it receives directly the punishment for its mistakes, God changes its sex, despoils it of its common mark of virility, changes it into a feminine nation, and sends conquerors to ravage it of its honour....”
Another sampling of the benefits of militarism is here, this time from Ireland. “... Bloodshed is a cleansing and sanctifying rite and the nation which regards it as a final horror has lost its manhood....”
The above, I suppose is a sufficient motivation for missile envy to proliferate. And surprisingly the most affected nations of this envy are those who can afford this costly paraphernalia. But again, like the possession of nuclear hardware, the nuclear club has now started doubting the value of these possessions, and at least they do not want the missiles proliferation to go unabated in other countries.
There has been unilateral destruction of some of this hardware by the USSR and USA, and the number of nuclear tipped missiles that these countries can hold have been reduced. But then it is not a zero sum game. ACDA (Arms Control & Disarmament Agency, USA) has outlined certain steps to contain missile proliferation, but these have only contained the proliferation, and the determined proliferators have continued with their game.
A useful, though not fully competent outfit in this sector is MTCR (Missile Technology Control Regime), See inset which tries to control export of missile fabricating material and by laying down the range and payload of missiles that can be fabricated. This criteria is however, flouted by many a determined proliferator.
Only recently a missile code has been signed at the Hague known as the International Code of Conduct against Ballistic Missiles Proliferation (ICOC). The launching conference was attended by 92 countries, though some important countries like China, Pakistan, India, Iraq and Iran did not attend this, and these countries are of quite a concern. As per the Dutch Foreign Minister De Hoop Scheffer “It is the first global non-proliferation instrument that specifically deals with systems capable of delivering weapons of mass destruction.” The signatories include the 15 EU countries besides nuclear powers Russia and USA. “The code of conduct is designed to ensure greater transparency on the development and testing of the powerful weapons and requires signatories to prepare an annual report on their programmes and to signal any upcoming weapons tests.”

Membership of and support for the Missile Technology Control Regime. 1991

Member of MTCR, Not member of Declared support national legislation MTCR but national for MTCR but no Country amended accordingly legislation passed legislative action

Australia *
Austria *
Belgium *
Canada *
Denmark *
France *
Finland *
Germany *
Italy *
Japan *
Luxembourg *
Netherlands *
New Zealand *
Norway *
Sweden *
Switzerland *
UK *
USA *

But again like the MTCR, it is a paper tiger, since it does not have the formal status of a treaty, includes no sanctions for countries that flaunt its rules, and lacks the backing of several states armed with ballistic missiles.
Finally, at the very best MTCR and ICOC are no more than being peripheral to the issues they seek to redress i.e. the nuclear proliferation and missile proliferation.
The most common and persistent criticism of the MTCR is as below:

* The classification of systems (missiles) are drawn up to exclude systems sold by signatory countries that are also usable as nuclear delivery vehicles, especially manned aircraft, and
* The range limit of 300 Kilometres and warhead weight of 500 Kilograms exclude the most widely exported ‘cruise’ missiles and remotely piloted vehicles manufactured by the signatory countries, such as the US ‘Harpoon’, the British ‘Sea Eagle’, and the French ‘Exocet’, even though these would be useful to any country trying to develop its missile production capabilities. This of course can be done by ‘reverse engineering.’
At the very best MTCR (Missile Technology Control Regime) is a paper tiger as the partnership is very loose and unprecise. Then again it is not very explicit in some aspects. For example, take the case of USSR (Ex) who consider the membership “to be no more than a public statement of intended policy since the legislative framework for exports is quite unclear....”
And quite paradoxically, there is the monopoly of those countries in the so-called regime who in fact are the greatest producers of the deadly ware and their assemblies and components, and at the same breath are advocating arms control and drastic checks in missile proliferation in ‘other’ countries. This appears to be irrational and terribly restrictive. Stated in yet another way and at the cost of some repetition the critics of MTCR allege that the MTCR, like quite a few other arms control measures is peripheral to the issues it seeks to redress i.e. nuclear proliferation and missile proliferation.
MTCR is restrictive on range and payload of missiles and export of certain dual technology parts, but with the improvements in missile technologies, the Annexure which lays down the essential parameters of MTCR must be reviewed. Consequently, the national delegates to the MTCR Group met in Tokyo in March 1991 meeting for the revision of Equipment and Technologies, and also to define technical parameters so that the industry could be more certain whether or not the control applies to certain technologies.
The decision making in connection with the transfer of technology is quite specifically laid down in the MTCR Guidelines. It, in fact, depends upon national legislation for its legal validity and national means for its implementation. The Guidelines state “It is understood that the decision to transfer remains the sole and sovereign judgement of the (exporting) Government.” Of course the signatories of the regime can exchange relevant information with one another ‘as necessary and appropriate.’
The MTCR is mandatory to the extent and in the sense that the signatories are obliged to consider it while making a decision on export of specified items and technologies. But then, since the parties are all themselves sovereign states, there are no sanctions for non-implementation.
The US Congress has, however, considered introducing unilateral sanctions against signatories considered by them to have violated the spirit of the agreement. This mainly occurred on US-French disagreement over certain sales to Brazil by France, which angered France to the extent that France threatened to withdraw from MTCR if any proposed US sanction was introduced into law.
The general reaction to MTCR from the suppliers side appears to be quite good and is confidence giving. However, it will take some time before it stabilizes and stays at these levels especially the relationship between signatories like Russia and non-signatories like China.
In May 1989 the then Soviet (Ex) Union Deputy Foreign Minister Victor Karpov suggested that the Soviet Union would like to see the payload and range levels specified in the MTCR be further lowered to 200Kg and 150 Kilometres respectively, i.e. almost half of the present figures.
And again it was suggested that an International Agency like the present IAEA be established and duly empowered to make decisions about which technologies transfers were in line with peaceful development of space and which were contributing to missile programmes.
The reaction of the recipient countries is not particularly palatable, and the MTCR has been severely criticized by the Third World countries especially those who are seeking to develop a civilian space industry.
Of these Brazil has been most openly hostile. Brazil has alleged that MTCR has delayed their launch of the satellite launch vehicle
programme, VLS although the rocket to be used in this programme did not itself exceed the range and payload specifications of MTCR.
Actually most of the Third World considers this as restrictive, intrusive and in some countries like Pakistan MTCR is considered as something coercive and discriminatory especially some of the restriction on importation of certain parts for commercial purposes and the recent blacklisting of certain Pakistani firms including KRL. This appears to be nothing short of high handedness on the part of USA.
As indicated earlier on such policies can quickly move beyond the question of missile technology transfer as MTCR appears to have been used to interfere in commercial competition between US and French firms.
MTCR, notwithstanding its drawbacks, it appears is gaining tacit support and approval although its long-term impact on arms control is not very clear. It may slow down and raise the cost of development of missiles in some countries. However, efforts to give more ‘teeth’ to MTCR may threaten withdrawal of members in some cases.
Finally and as a summation, the Director of US Naval intelligence (Ex) Admiral Thomas Brooks during his briefing to Congress on MTCR and NPT said that these “have been largely ineffective and are likely to remain so.” This view is also supported by the US think tank RAND Corporation in a January 1990 study.