"The growth of unrivaled U.S. conventional military capabilities has contributed to our ability to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in deterring non-nuclear attacks....The Department of Defense (DoD) is currently exploring the full range of technologies and systems for a Conventional Prompt Global Strike (CPGS) capability that could provide the President more credible and technically suitable options for dealing with new and evolving threats." [8]
Describing the constituent parts of PGS, the State Department press release also revealed:
"Current efforts are examining three concepts: Hypersonic Technology Vehicle, Conventional Strike Missile, and Advanced Hypersonic Weapon. These projects are managed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Center, and Army Space and Missile Defense Command respectively....[The START II] warhead ceiling would accommodate any plans the United States might develop during the life of this Treaty to deploy conventional warheads on ballistic missiles."
In language as unequivocal as the State Department has been known to employ, the statement added:
"New START protects the U.S. ability to develop and deploy a CPGS capability. The Treaty in no way prohibits the United States from building or deploying conventionally-armed ballistic missiles."
The Department of Defense "is studying CPGS within the context of its portfolio of all non-nuclear long-range strike capabilities including land-based and sea-based systems, as well as standoff and/or penetrating bombers...." [9]
The non-nuclear missiles referred to are designed to strike any spot on earth within sixty minutes, but as the main proponent of PGS, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marine General James Cartwright, recently boasted, "At the high end," strikes could be delivered in "300 milliseconds." [10]
Speaking of the air force third of the GPS triad - nuclear-armed cruise missiles fired from B-52 bombers, X-51 unmanned aircraft that can fly at 5,000 miles per hour, the Blackswift "spaceplane" - Cartwright has also said that current conventionally armed bombers are "too slow and too intrusive" for many "global strike missions." [11]
On January 21 Deputy Secretary of Defense William Lynn called for placing the Pentagon "on a permanent footing to fight both low-intensity conflicts to maintaining air dominance and the ability to strike any target on Earth at any time....The next air warfare priority for the Pentagon is developing a next-generation, deep-penetrating strike capability that can overcome advanced air defenses...." [12]
In a Global Security Network analysis titled "Cost to Test U.S. Global-Strike Missile Could Reach $500 Million," Elaine Grossman wrote:
"The Obama administration has requested $239.9 million for prompt global strike research and development across the military services in fiscal 2011....If funding levels remain as anticipated into the coming years, the Pentagon will have spent some $2 billion on prompt global strike by the end of fiscal 2015, according to budget documents submitted last month to Capitol Hill." [13]
The land-based component of PGS, Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missiles with a conventional payload, will "initially boost into space like a ballistic missile, dispatch a 'hypersonic test vehicle' to glide and maneuver into a programmed destination, which could be updated or altered remotely during flight." [14]
Last month Defense News featured an article with the title "U.S. Targets Precision Arms for 21st-Century Wars," which included this excerpt:
"To counter...air defenses, the Pentagon wants to build a host of precision
weapons that can hit any target from thousands of miles away. Known as a family of systems, these weapons could include whatever the Air Force chooses as its next bomber, a new set of cruise missiles and even, someday, hypersonic weapons developed under the Pentagon's Prompt Global Strike program that would give the speed and range of an ICBM to a conventional warhead." [15]
A recent Washington Post report on PGS quoted Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warning that "World states will hardly accept a situation in which nuclear weapons disappear, but weapons that are no less destabilizing emerge in the hands of certain members of the international community." [16]
The same source added "the Obama administration...sees the missiles as one cog in an array of defensive and offensive weapons that could ultimately replace nuclear arms," and quoted the Pentagon's Cartwright as affirming: "Deterrence can no longer just be nuclear weapons. It has to be broader." [17]
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