Counterforce
During the Cold War offensive counterforce attack operations were the preferred means of both the United States and the Soviet Union for countering the other side's strategic forces. The problem of destroying ballistic missiles on the ground before they were launched was widely recognized as far more tractable than the difficult challenge of destroying them in flight after launch. Even advocates of the "highly-leveraged" boost-phase interception of ballistic missiles conceded that the "pre-boost phase" was the most highly leveraged layer of defense.Thus the resources devoted to counterforce capabilities by the superpowers far outweighed the resources devoted to anti-missile systems, even prior to the signing of the ABM Treaty in 1972.
However, at present, the United States is spending far more on Missile Defense than it is on conventional counterforce and related capabilities dedicated to attacking theater missiles on the ground before they are launched. In part, this allocation of resources reflects the abundance of weapons, platforms and sensors that can be applied to attacking theater missiles and launchers, in addition to the full spectrum of other ground targets.
The current emphasis on post-launch active defense in preference to pre-launch attack also stems from some fundamental misreadings of the combat experience during Operation Desert Storm. At the time, there was considerable political incentive to keep Israeli forces uninvolved in combat operations, and thus considerable incentive to attempt to convince Israel both of the vast magnitude and the effectiveness of the efforts being expended in countering Iraqi Scuds. Countering Israeli charges of inadequate American efforts, General Charles Horner, in charge of the air campaign, asserted tha "... fully 25 percent of the attack missions by F-15s, F-16s, and low-flying A-10s at one time were dedicated to the mobile missile chase."
In the immediate aftermath of Desert Storm, the air campaign against mobile Scud launchers was widely faulted as having consumed a disproportionate share of aerial resources to no good end, as it was concluded shortly after the conflict that the air campaign had failed to destroy a single mobile Scud launcher. Correcting wartime misperceptions of the effectiveness of the air campaign further distorted perceptions of the overall efforts, which continued to be regarded as massive. It is increasingly clear, however, that this critique is fundamentally flawed. And it should also be clear that significant enhancements to future theater counterforce campaigns hold the prospect of materially improving a demonstrably robust capability.
Air Force Chief of Staff General Ronald Fogleman, writing in the Autumn 1995 issue of Joint Forces Quarterly, noted that "Despite claims to the contrary, the effort ... was not excessive. Less than 4 percent of the 42,000 strike missions flown during the war were against elements of the Iraqi ballistic missile target set."
Throughout the Desert Storm air campaign, a total of 1,599 sorties [single flights by a single airplane] were assigned under the Air Tasking Order to counter-Scud operations, and a total of 1,459 strikes [launches of weapons against targets] were performed. These numbers pale in comparison with the total effort of the air campaign, in which 41,309 strikes were performed by 51,146 air-to-ground sorties [out of a total of 118,661 sorties of all types]. Thus operations against Scuds consumed only 1.3% of all sorties and 3.1% of air-to-ground sorties, while accounting for just 3.5% of strikes [all these numbers are derived from volume 5 of the Gulf War Air Power Survey]. The great Scud hunt did account for some 806 of the 2,202 air-to-ground sorties flown by the F-15E, but this was on account of the unique targeting radar carried by this aircraft. This system would otherwise have found little application against the remainder of Iraq's forces, which, unlike the mobile Scud launchers, remained largely immobilized throughout the air campaign.
Despite initial claims of successful destruction of mobile Scud launchers during the air campaign, it was subsequently determined that the destroyed vehicles were decoys, and that not a single actual mobile launcher was destroyed during the air campaign. This should not be interpreted as a measure of failure, but rather as a measure of success -- Iraqi missile teams were too preoccupied with eluding the air campaign to execute their primary mission of firing missiles.. Indeed, the "virtual" attrition of Iraqi Scuds by the air campaign far overshadowed the "real" attrition inflicted by Patriot interceptors. Iraq entered Desert Storm with an inventory of many hundreds of Scud-derived missiles [the total count remains controversial]. During the course of the 43-day conflict a total of 88 missiles were fired, with the maximum rate of fire of 10 launches on 21 January 1991. More typically only a handful of missiles were launched in a day, and on 21 days no missiles were launched at all. Clearly, the potential of launching 430 missiles [10 a day for 43 days] was not realized. This is "virtual attrition" -- some 80% of potential missile launches were prevented by Iraqi efforts to avoid the air campaign.
Air Force Chief of Staff General Ronald Fogleman, writing in the Autumn 1995 issue of Joint Forces Quarterly, concluded:
"During Desert Storm ... we denied the enemy use of fixed Scud sites and made it dangerous for mobile missiles to move...
"Our attacks against the Iraqi forces effectively suppressed rates of fire, disrupted operations tempo, and limited multiple launches. The enemy had 500-600 missiles and upwards of 36 TELs but fired only 88 Scuds. Having previously demonstrated a high launch rate in the Iran-Iraq War by firing almost 200 Scuds, Iraq should have been able to expend its entire Scud inventory. That it did not is a tribute to intense coalition air operations that destroyed launchers and related logistics or kept the enemy too busy hiding to fire its missiles....
"We can statistically show that Iraq launched Scuds more often during bad weather with low visibility than in good weather -- perhaps believing that bad weather offered protection from attack. The bottom line is that coalition dominance of Iraqi airspace apparently drove the enemy to seek the cover of clouds to protect its TELs."
These successes were achieved in the face of a wide array of persistent and clever Iraqi countermeasures. Certainly the most effective response to the relentless air campaign was operation in a "shoot-and-scoot" mode, with mobile launchers departing the launch area at high speed as soon as their missile was launched. Frequently the launchers rapidly moved to pre-surveyed revetments, which shielded the vehicles from the effects of aerial bombardment. Indigenously produced mobile erector launchers [MELs] lacked many of the distinctive signatures of imported transporter erector launchers [TELs], and the task of identifying launchers was further complicated by the extensive use of decoys. Scuds were launched during times of maximum cloud cover, complicating visual acquisition of launchers. Missiles were preferentially launched at dawn and dusk, when lighting conditions complicated pilot visibility, and infrared imaging systems experience "thermal cross-over" which reduces the contrast between vehicles and terrain. During the day, launchers hid under bridges and other structures to shield them from ready identification.
In the decade since Desert Storm, much has been done to improve counterforce capabilities against mobile missile launchers.
- Improved surveillance systems, mainly in the form of Unmanned Air Vehicles [UAVs], will significantly improve the ability to identify and track mobile launchers. Hyperspectral optical cameras will greatly reduce the effectiveness of camouflage. Improved mapping and terrain analysis computers provide greater potential for identifying likely hiding places and evacuation routes. High flying and stealthy UAVs will bring high-resolution synthetic-aperture radars over the battlefield, providing continuous all-weather coverage of potential launcher deployment areas [during Desert Storm, piloted aircraft carrying such sensors remained outside of Iraqi airspace, providing surveillance-proof sanctuaries for missile launchers].
- Improved communications will greatly reduce the amount of time required to relay target information to air crews. During Desert Storm, too often precious minutes elapsed between the time a launch was detected [usually by satellite] and the time this information was received by air crews in the launch area -- in the interval, missile launch crews had time to leave the immediate area. The total intelligence cycle time has been reduced from a Desert Storm average of 45 minutes, more than adquate for mobile launchers to flee, to a mere four minutes, during which slow-moving vehicles could move only a few thousand feet from the scene of the launch. Coupled with improved surveillance systems, impressive "virtual" attrition will in the future be augmented by hard-kills as well.
- Improved munitions, particularly inexpensive precision-guided munitions, when coupled with enhanced surveillance and communications, will comprise a powerful "reconnaissance-strike complex" capable of placing at risk the full spectrum of mobile targets, such as theater missile launchers.
Many of these improvements were originally developed during the Cold War to support attack of Soviet land-mobile strategic ballistic missiles. Then as now, they are not a panacea -- while they performed much better than is commonly appreciated during Desert Storm, and hold the promise of improved performance in the future, there is little prospect of perfection. However, against existing and prospective missile threats, counterforce will prove a far more cost-effective approach than Theater Missile Defense.
Sources and Resources
- Radical Responses to Radical Regimes: Evaluating Preemptive Counter-Proliferation, Barry R. Schneider McNair Paper Number 41, May 1995 -- Numerous preemptive counter-proliferation strikes have taken place since 1940. Allied air forces and special operations forces destroyed German nuclear facilities and heavy water supplies that were an integral part of the Nazi A-bomb research effort. U.S. bombers also destroyed the most important Japanese nuclear research laboratory in Tokyo at the end of WWII. Other raids include: Iran versus Iraq in 1980, Israel versus Iraq in 1981, Iraq versus Iran with seven raids from 1984 to 1988, and the U.S.-led coalition versus Iraq in 1991.
- Counterforce and Theater Missile Defense: Can the Army Use an ASW Approach to the Scud Hunt? By James J. Wirtz, Associate Professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA. -- 27 March 1995 PDF Size = 90K Instead of developing strategy on an ad hoc basis, the philosophy that influences the U.S. Navy's approach to anti-submarine warfare (ASW) might serve as a guide to counterforce operations against mobile missiles. Counterforce attacks would reduce the tactical problem faced by Patriot crews, improving the overall performance of TMD. He also notes that an ASW approach to counterforce should help the United States achieve its political objectives of alliance formation and deterrence in the face of regional aggression.
- Theater Ballistic Missile Defense Ronald R. Fogleman - Joint Forces Quarterly Autumn 1995 -- During Desert Storm we also learned the importance
of countering mobile ballistic missile capability. An aggressive Scud hunt with air assets paid significant dividends. Capitalizing on our dominance of Iraqi airspace, we denied the enemy use of fixed Scud sites and made it dangerous for
mobile Scuds to move.
- Changing Targets: Nuclear Doctrine from the Cold War to the Third World by Hans M. Kristensen and Joshua Handler Greenpeace International 1 March 1995 "Joint Chiefs of Staff has issued a new nuclear doctrine which encompasses using nuclear weapons in regional contingencies against weapons of mass destruction. The Strategic Command (STRATCOM), Air Force, and Navy are upgrading their strategic intelligence and nuclear missile systems so they can more rapidly identify and strike targets around the globe."
- SECURITY ASSURANCES TO NON-NUCLEAR-WEAPON STATES
by George Bunn and Roland M. Timerbaev The Nonproliferation Review: Fall 1993, Volume 1 - Number 1 "As for negative assurances, all five avowed NWSs have made at least qualified unilateral declarations
applicable globally, but these declarations contain different commitments and do not constitute the collective, uniform, binding obligation sought by NNWSs."
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