US, Japan to ink $2 billion missile defense deal http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=reutersEdge&storyID=2006-04-18T193940Z_01_N18361083_RTRUKOC_0_US-ARMS-JAPAN-USA.xml
Tue Apr 18, 2006
By Jim Wolf
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States and Japan are about to sign a milestone $2 billion co-development pact for an advanced sea-based missile designed to shoot down ballistic missiles in a wider swath of their flight paths, a senior Pentagon official said on Tuesday.
Under an agreement to be inked by the end of May, the two countries will develop, test and produce an enhanced version of the Standard Missile-3 interceptor, or SM-3, to be ready by 2014, said David Altwegg, operations director of the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency.
"I can't emphasize how big a deal this is," he said in an interview with Reuters. "It further cements the very close relationship we have with our Japanese ally."
Raytheon Co. (RTN.N: Quote, Profile, Research) builds the existing SM-3 missile. It is integrated with Lockheed Martin Corp.'s (LMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research) Aegis ballistic missile defense system, currently to protect against short- to intermediate-range ballistic missiles.
Japan has outstripped all other nations in joining the multibillion-dollar U.S. drive for a layered shield against ballistic missiles that could carry warheads tipped with chemical, nuclear or germ weapons. Tokyo's interest soared after North Korea fired a multistage Taepo Dong 1 missile across the Japanese mainland on August 31, 1998.
Japan's involvement also reflects what may be an even greater concern about China, according to a new report on missile defense in Asia by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based research group. "The most significant technical gap in Japanese defenses is a lack of capability against Chinese ICBM-class weapons," the report said, referring to intercontinental ballistic missiles.
SCARCE DOLLARS
Altwegg, a retired rear admiral who serves as the agency's chief financial manager, said that if Washington had to pay for the new SM-3 interceptor's development alone, "I'm not sure when we would do this," given scarce defense dollars and competing priorities.
Japan announced in December 2003 it would join the United States in fielding a layered anti-missile bulwark, using both Aegis-equipped destroyers and Lockheed Martin Patriot PAC-3 anti-missile systems to be co-produced under license.
China has denounced Tokyo's missile-defense moves as a step toward offensive operations in the region, a threat to the regional power balance and a potential arms-race trigger.
The planned new "full caliber" SM-3 "Block 2" version, with a 21-inch diameter, would add a capability to shoot down incoming warheads in their downward flight path before reentering the Earth's atmosphere, Altwegg said. He said Japan was also moving toward a deal to modify the second of up to four Kongo-class destroyers with the Aegis ballistic missile defense system, linchpin of the sea-based part of missile defense.
The Missile Defense Agency and the Japan Defense Agency have not yet worked out how to split the SM-3 development work nor determined how to select their contractors, Altwegg said.
The projected $2 billion deal would cover development of the enhanced booster and modifications to the Aegis weapons system, he said. Raytheon expects to play a role in the project, building on a joint U.S.-Japanese research program begun in August 1999, said Dean Gehr, a director of business development at Raytheon's Missile Systems unit in Tucson, Arizona.
Under the joint research program, Raytheon worked with Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. (7011.T: Quote, Profile, Research) to design an experimental SM-3 "nosecone" that opens like a clam shell to release the so-called kill vehicle -- the barrel-shaped device that destroys an oncoming warhead by colliding with it.
© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.