Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States


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Attachment 1. A. Year 2000 (Y2K) Computer Problem The widely-discussed Year 2000 (Y2K) problem concerns computer hardware with embedded clocks and software with date recognition functions that still designate years with only two digits and are programmed to interpret "00" as the year 1900 rather than 2000. The tasks of reprogramming are immense and complex, and uncertainties surrounding their pace and outcome plague many aspects of life and commerce. The Commission judges that military and intelligence operations are not immune to the effects of the Y2K problem. Not only at the millennium but for some undetermined time before and after it the Y2K problem can affect U.S. and Russian ballistic missile forces and, to a lesser extent, those of China, the United Kingdom (U.K.) and France. The U.S. particularly and Russia somewhat less so depend on computer-based and computer-aided intelligence and surveillance and on automated processes to assure that their ballistic missile forces will function under all conceivable circumstances. The Y2K problem can potentially upset some of those calculations by interfering with the capacity of the U.S. and Russia to: * Monitor the activities of each other at the strategic level, including the disposition and posture of their conventional military forces. * Provide tactical warning of military operations, particularly ballistic missile operations, through collection of data from space-, air- and ground-based sensors. * Process and fuse the data received from sensors in the command and control nets. * Maintain positive control over ballistic missile forces and, if automated responses to false data and warnings are triggered, retain or regain control by the national military and political leadership. Y2K problems are complex and not easy to deal with. Efforts are underway to isolate critical systems from the problem, but they may not totally eliminate vulnerabilities for two reasons: * No system is completely isolated. Command centers may have new software installed, but if the support services--electric, water, gas and communications, for example--are not self-contained the center may fail. Even if support services are self-contained, the need for the center to function via computer or by computer-dependent communication systems makes it vulnerable to Y2K problems up or downstream from it. * Efforts to correct the problem provide their own attractive opportunities for unfriendly agents and powers to tamper with mission-critical software. Errors can be programmed which are designed to appear only much later and in circumstances that cannot be anticipated. The Commission is troubled by the amount of Y2K software work being performed in foreign countries, particularly India, for U.S. industry and for the U.S. Government--including elements of the Intelligence Community. B. Revolution in Military Affairs and Information Warfare The term "Revolution in Military Affairs" (RMA) is used to describe the impact of leading-edge military technologies and information warfare on the conduct of military operations from the tactical to the strategic level. Key RMA technologies include precision-guided munitions, stealth technology and the use of space-based assets for command, control, communications, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, as well as modern computational capabilities to integrate these functions. The U.S. military is adopting new weapon systems and tactical, operational and strategic concepts based on the elements of the RMA. The objective is to make U.S. forces lighter but more lethal so that fewer personnel with less equipment can strike over longer distances and with a far more powerful effect. This gives prospective adversaries greater incentives to find new ways of offsetting the new RMA-based capabilities of the U.S. and in particular to come up with new "asymmetric" strategies--that is, strategies that can cripple U.S. ability to use its forces without the adversary having to confront those forces directly. These asymmetric strategies of potential adversaries of the U.S. could well include ballistic missile operations against ports, airfields, communications centers or urban and industrial areas. Attacking ports and airfields the U.S. might use could severely hamper operations and could undercut the military advantages U.S. technological superiority provides. Interrupting communications channels would make it more difficult to plan, organize and conduct operations. Strikes by an adversary on urban and industrial centers could change the nature of the conflict from what the U.S. prefers--one confined to precision attacks against military forces in the field and point targets in urban and industrial settings--to one of indiscriminate damage to civilians and the infrastructure supporting them. In the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Iraqi ballistic missiles threatened to undermine the coalition's political strategy, and the coalition's military responses failed to halt Iraqi ballistic missile attacks. Doctrinal shifts in Russia and China have placed added emphasis on ballistic missile operations. Together, these highlight the vulnerability to such operations of the U.S., its forces and its allies, whether conducted by Russia, China or emerging ballistic missile powers. A number of other nations are incorporating technical features of the RMA into their forces. These features include space-based surveillance and reconnaissance. They also include communications using either space-based networks (perhaps using civilian assets) or land-based fiber-optic networks, guidance from the space-based global positioning system/global navigation satellite system (GPS/GLONASS) to increase the accuracy of missiles and the computational capabilities needed to plan, organize and conduct operations. Their capacity to conduct asymmetric operations with ballistic missiles, including attacks on RMA sites in the U.S., will increase.


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