Defense cubed - use of brilliant pebbles to protect command, control and communication network during nuclear attack - A Deterrent That Deters

National Review, May 5, 1989 by James J. Frelk

TEN YEARS AGO Harold Brown, then Secretary of Defense, estimated that the Soviet nuclear arsenal could destroy 95 per cent of our ICBMs, and the situation has worsened since then. These developments have made our strategic planners quite nervous. Current plans call for meeting this threat with mobile ICBMs, new submarinelaunched missiles, and the B-2 stealth bomber. All this is expected to cost some $300 billion over the next ten years. And yet it is mostly money down the drain, unless we find a way to protect the Achilles' heel of the American nuclear deterrent the command, control, and communication network for our nuclear forces.

This network, known as "C-cubed," is the nerve center of the U.S. strategic force. If the United States is attacked by missiles, the C-cubed network provides the President with crucial information: Where is the attack coming from? Headed toward which targets? Accidental launch or massive attack? All the information flows up to the President through the C-cubed network. After he decides on a response, the orders flow down the chain of command through the network again, to the commanders in the field.

Break the chain, and the forces poised for retaliation are paralyzed. The weapons are in place; the field commanders are ready; but they never receive the order to fire.

The kicker is that the C-cubed network depends on only a few hundred sites-command posts, launch-control centers, satellite receiving stations, AT&T switching centers, and the like. Many of these are quite soft-i.e., easily destroyed by accurate warheads, of which the Soviets have at least six thousand. The main control station for our vital Early Warning satellites, for example, is a conspicuous blue building a few miles from the Pacific coast in California, called the Blue Cube [see "SDI Watch," NR, Feb. 10]. The Blue Cube is only minutes away from destruction by missiles launched from offshore Soviet submarines.

Why would the Soviets bother to go after thousands of elusive targets like mobile ICBMs and submarines when destroying a handful of critical sites of the C-cubed network would emasculate our nuclear forces just as effectively? Defense planners in the Reagan Administration spent nearly $20 billion trying to remedy the situation, but experts say the network still has no chance of surviving an all-out attack.

What can be done? Progress on SDI technologies suggests an answer: defend the C-cubed against Soviet missiles. Use simple, heat-seeking weapons similar to the Stinger and the Sidewinder, but packed with computing power and upgraded in speed, so they can intercept fast-moving Soviet missiles and warheads. No "Star Wars" lasers are involved-only small slugs of metal with "eyes" and a computer "brain," designed to kill by impact. They are called "smart rocks" or, in their latest, miniaturized version, "brilliant pebbles."

The system being developed by the Department of Defense has the smart rocks deployed in two layers. One layer is in space, on satellites orbiting over the Soviet Union. The other layer is on the ground, mostly on U.S. territory. In the event of a Soviet missile attack, the smart rocks orbiting in space would hit the Soviet ICBMs over the USSR itself, just after they had been launched, breaking up the timing of the attack so the Soviets could not overwhelm our ground-based defenses. The smart rocks on the ground would mop up warheads that leaked through the space defense, with particular concentration on protecting high-value sites like the Blue Cube.

Smart rocks would protect the C-cubed network, and the silo-based missiles that have everyone worried, against Soviet attack. In addition, they would protect the U.S.and our allies-against missile attacks by terrorist nations, We would get triple value out of this investment.

SMART ROCKS have been the weapons of choice in missile defense because they can be deployed in the 1990s, while the exotic lasers and particle beams are farther off. But there have been some catches. One was cost. Smart rocks are not cheap; the bill for SDS-1, the defense being tested by the Defense Department, has been estimated at $69 billion. That is more than the cost of the new Air Force fighter ($45 billion), and equal to the cost of the B-2 Stealth bomber ($69 billion).

Smart rocks in space are expensive because the cost of ifting weights into orbit currently runs about $5,000 a pound. These "rocks" should have been called boulders, because they weigh about five hundred pounds apiece. That means more than a million dollars each just to put them into orbit, not counting the cost of manufacture.

Survivability has been another big problem. The smart rocks in space were supposed to be parked in satellite "garages," with ten rocks in each garage. These satellite garages make tempting targets for Soviet ASATs, or satellite-killers.

Moreover, the smart rocks have tunnel vision: a smart rock has an "eye" for tracking ICBMs-but the eye can only see a tiny part of the sky at one time. In fact, it might miss a Soviet ICBM launch altogether, unless some other eyes, larger and more capable, first told it the general direction in which to look. These big eyes have to be located on the garage or some other satellite. Wherever the big eyes are, they also make a very tempting target for Soviet ASATs, because ifthey are destroyed, all the smart rocks are useless.