Richard N. Cooper
Chairman, National Intelligence Council

The Ballistic Missile Threat to the U.S. and its Allies
28 February 1996 - House National Security Committee

Emerging Missile Threats to North America During the Next 15 Years

Good afternoon Chairman Spence, members of the Congress, and guests. I appreciate the opportunity to brief the Committee on the Intelligence Community's assessment of long range missile threats to the United States. My remarks are based on a recent National Intelligence Estimate "Emerging Missile Threats to North America during the Next 15 Years." I would add that the focus of that estimate was on emerging threats from countries other than Russia and China, although it did touch on their strategic forces. I will outline the key judgments of that study. In addition, I will comment on the process that generates NIEs in general-and this one in particular--necessary in my view because some questions have been raised about the integrity of this process.

In this open forum I am obviously constrained in what I can say about our intelligence. I would be glad to meet with you in closed session, where I and my colleagues can provide a more detailed assessment.

Mr. Chairman, let me make some brief remarks on the missile threats from Russia and China before I turn to the bulk of the judgments of our estimate dealing with other countries.

Russia

With the end of the Cold War, the United States faces a clearly diminished threat of nuclear attack by the missile forces of the former Soviet Union. Nevertheless, Russia continues to maintain an operational strategic nuclear force capable of delivering thousands of nuclear warheads against the United States. START I has resulted in a numerically smaller force, but Russia continues strategic force modernization programs, albeit within the constraints of a greatly weakened economy.

China

The Chinese force of nuclear tipped ICBMs is small by US and Russian standards and will remain so. Many of China's long-range systems are probably aimed at the United States. China plans to update this force with new missiles and, unlike the Russians, to increase the number of missiles deployed. Possible future improvements are to include a mobile ICBM.

Unauthorized Launch

In our recent NIE, the Intelligence Community reaffirmed earlier assessments that the current threat to North America from unauthorized or accidental launch of Russian or Chinese strategic missiles remains remote and has not changed significantly from that of the past decade.

Other Nations

Nearly a dozen countries other than Russia and China have ballistic missile development programs. In the view of the Intelligence Community, these programs are to serve regional goals. Making the change from a short or medium range missile--that may pose a threat to US troops located abroad--to a long range ICBM capable of threatening our citizens at home, is a major technological leap.

The key judgments of the estimate I noted above are as follows: First, the Intelligence Community judges that in the next 15 years no country other than the major declared nuclear powers will develop a ballistic missile that could threaten the contiguous 48 states or Canada.

Second, we believe North Korea is developing a missile, which we call the Taepo Dong 2, that could have a range sufficient to reach Alaska. The missile may also be capable of reaching some US territories in the Pacific and the far western portion of the 2000 km-long Hawaiian Island chain.

North Korea is unlikely, in the next 15 years, to obtain the technological capability to develop and deploy a longer range ICBM capable of reaching the contiguous 48 states.

-- North Korea would have to develop a new propulsion system, it would have to develop or acquire improved guidance and control systems, and it would have to conduct a flight test program. Meeting these challenges will take time, given the technical and manufacturing infrastructure of North Korea, and the political and economic situation in the country.

-- We have no evidence that P'yongyang has begun or intends to begin such a program.

Third, no other potentially hostile country has the technical capability to develop an ICBM in the next 15 years.

Fourth, any country with an indigenously developed space launch vehicle--for example, France, Japan, Israel or India--could develop an ICBM within five years if so motivated.

We are likely to detect any indigenous program to develop a long-range ballistic missile many years before deployment.

--A flight test is a sure, detectable sign of a ballistic missile program. Normally the first flight test would provide at least five years warning before deployment.

--Moreover, we would almost certainly obtain other earlier indicators of an ICBM program.

Fifth, foreign assistance can affect the pace of a missile program. Since specific technological assistance is difficult to predict, the potential for foreign assistance introduces some uncertainty into our predictions of timeliness In making our assessments, we have allowed for acquisition of some foreign technology by the countries of interest.

--The Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) has significantly limited international transfers of missiles, components, and related technology, and we project it will continue to do so. --That said, leakage of components and critical technologies into developing countries has occurred, and will likely continue. A good case in point-subsequent to the publication of the NIE -- is the recent interception of Russian missile guidance components en route to Iraq.

Sixth, we expect no country that currently has ICBMs will sell them. Each of these countries has agreed to adhere to the MTCR, and transfer of an ICBM would show blatant disregard for the MTCR Regime. Also, exporting countries probably would be concerned that the missiles might be turned against them.

Cruise Missiles

Seventh, we examined worldwide development programs for cruise missiles because of the possibility of their being launched from forward-based ships. By 2005, several countries, including some potentially hostile to the United States, probably will acquire land-attack cruise missiles to support regional goals. We believe that an attack by cruise missiles launched from ships off the coast would be technically feasible, but unlikely.

NIE Process

I have discussed what the NIE said. Let me spend a few minutes outlining how the NIE process works. A national intelligence estimate is the Intelligence Community's most authoritative projection of future developments in a particular subject area. It is prepared by the National Intelligence Council, which I head, with the participation of all agencies of the Intelligence Community, and it contains the assessments and judgments of all these agencies. Each NIE is discussed and approved at a meeting of the most senior members of the Intelligence Community.

The process for producing NIEs is directed particularly at ensuring presentation of all viewpoints. We do not impose consensus; in fact we encourage the many agencies that participate in NIEs to state their views and we display major differences of view in the main text -- lesser reservations are expressed in footnotes.

The estimate on which I based my testimony today is no exception. It is the most authoritative current statement on the subject by the Intelligence Community. Moreover, the key judgments I outlined were free of contention.

Furthermore, the judgments in the estimates are largely consistent with previous Intelligence Community assessments and with those of individual agencies. The only areas of change are:

--First, the timelines for development of the Taepo Dong missiles. Most agencies believe the Taepo Dong 2 program will move slower than we projected earlier, and there are some concrete reasons for this change.

-Second, for two countries, our estimate of the time required for ICBM development has been extended somewhat. I would be happy to provide the members of the Committee the details of the countries and timelines in closed session.

-- To emphasize how little our assessments have changed, I would like to read from an unclassified summary of a 1993 CIA report that is similar in content to our recent NIE:

"Analysis of all available information shows the probability is low that any other country [than China or the former Soviet Union] will acquire this capability [for an ICBM attack on the United States] during the next 15 years."

Let me conclude with a final comment on the time frame of the estimate. During the formative stages of our recent NIE, the time frame was a topic for discussion. A compromise was reached at 15 years -- 20 years being too speculative, and five or ten years not being of maximal value to the acquisition community.

Uncertainty of course grows as we project more distantly into the future. As we have seen in recent years, world politics can change quite rapidly. But because ICBM programs move slowly, and because the technological base, motivation, and economic resources of potentially hostile countries are all limited, we have concluded in the NIE that these countries are highly unlikely to deploy ICBMs within 15 years.

-- Our problem would have been harder if we had attempted to predict what will be in development or on the drawing board in 15 years, or if we had evidence today of either an ICBM program or strong technological infrastructure.

The fact that we project out 15 years does not mean that we can safely dismiss this subject until well into the next century. Our analytical work will continue, we expect to monitor developments, to produce additional studies, and to bring to the attention of the President and the members of Congress intelligence information on this subject of critical importance to our national security.