hankyoreh

former director of Operational Test and Evaluation at the Pentagon

A former senior official in the US Defense Department who was in charge of testing the performance of new weapons has stated his agreement with the analysis of the Hankyoreh and American scholars who raised questions about the performance of THAAD (Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense), a system of interceptors used in missile defense. This official also warned that deploying THAAD to the Korean Peninsula would launch an arms race with North Korea and China.

During a telephone interview with the Hankyoreh on June 30, Philip Coyle, former director of Operational Test and Evaluation at the Pentagon, was asked to assess an analysis of the performance of THAAD interceptors carried out by Theodore Postol, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and George Lewis, a researcher at the Cornell University Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies. Coyle said, “I agree with what they said.”

The Hankyoreh provided Coyle with the two scholars’ research findings several days before the interview took place.

The Pentagon’s director of operational test and evaluation is responsible for carrying out a final review of new weapons systems before the Pentagon makes a decision about their acquisition and mass production to determine whether they are effective in actual combat.

The director reports the findings of this review directly to the Secretary of Defense and Congress. Since the director is appointed by the US President and approved by the Senate, he or she enjoys comparative independence inside the Pentagon bureaucracy.

Coyle previously served as the associate director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a state-run nuclear research center. He was the Pentagon‘s director of operational test and evaluation from 1994 to 2001, the longest time that anyone has held the post.

Coyle also responded to claims by the US Missile Defense Agency (MDA) that nine experiments on THAAD interceptors were all successful. “Those tests don’t capture the performance of SCUD missiles and other missiles that are made to be really cheap. And the result can tumble or spiral and will become much more difficult target. The missile defense interceptors are very expensive, but the attacking missiles can be so cheap,” Coyle said.

Coyle said that another shortcoming of the US missile defense system is the fact that it is incredibly expensive for the US to produce its missile defense systems, but extremely cheap for North Korea to make its missiles. This makes it difficult to deploy enough THAAD interceptors to protect against all of North Korea’s Scud and Rodong missiles.

In regard to the concerns that China has expressed about the possibility of THAAD being deployed on the Korean Peninsula, Coyle mentioned Postol and Lewis’s analysis of the THAAD radar. “As Postol and Lewis show, this system is used against China. So it is understandable China would be concerned,” he said.

When the US built a missile defense network in Eastern Europe, it told Russia that the network was meant to defend against Iran, but in fact it was capable of being turned against Russia, Coyle said. The ongoing contention between the US and Russia over missile defense in Eastern Europe would be sure to erupt between the US and China in Northeast Asia.

Coyle said that Russia, China, and other potential enemies of the US are aware that the US missile defense system can be neutralized simply by rolling out more missiles, a strategy that in fact Russia is already using.

“Russia is building more offensive missiles. We couldn’t possibly defend all the missiles the Russia already have. The problem I think for South Korea is that it encourages China to build more offensive missiles.”

“North Korea could do the same thing, seeing South Korea build missile defense. North Korea could say we could make more offensive missiles. It create kind of arms race where North Korea just build more and more missiles,” Coyle said.

“The history of missile defense is that it only encourages the adversaries - whoever it is Russia, China, North Korea, or Iran - to build more offensive missiles.”

If bureaucrats at the Pentagon are already aware of the limitations of the missile defense strategy, why do they continue to pursue it? Coyle said that they do so “because Congress is concerned about the threat of ballistic missiles.”

“They feel like we have to deal with something. But of course North Korea doesn’t have the missiles they can reach the US. Neither Iran does. As far as the US is concerned, no threats. It could be someday but not now. So there is a lot of pressure for deployment of systems to buy more interceptors coming from the US Congress. 44 interceptors instead of 30 in Alaska is driven by primarily the US Congress.”

He added that, at the moment, neither North Korea nor Iran have missiles capable of reaching the continental US.

By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent

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