BMD Focus: Second hand Patriots

WASHINGTON, March 15 (UPI) -- South Korea's groundbreaking efforts to develop a ballistic missile defense strategy based on its unique security challenges and its limited resources took a novel turn this week: The Seoul government started negotiations with Germany to buy second-hand, U.S.-built Patriot anti-ballistic missile interceptors.

The Korea Times reported Tuesday that senior South Korean and Germany defense officials had that same day initiated three days of discussions focused on Seoul's efforts to buy second-hand, U.S.-built Patriot interceptors from Berlin and boost bilateral cooperation. The newspaper cited the South Korean Defense Acquisition Program Administration, or DAPA, as its source.

"High on the agenda is Seoul's purchase of second-hand Patriot anti-missile systems from the European country," the newspaper said, quoting DAPA officials.

U.S. defense contractors were no doubt disappointed that South Korea has not proved a lucrative market for new patriot PAC-3s, as neighboring Japan has been. But they were hardly surprised. As we have reported in these columns in December, South Korean leader have made far-reaching strategic decision to pursue relatively extensive BMD capabilities against the potential threat from neighboring North Korea, but they are trying to keep their expenditures reined in.

The Korea Times said that the Seoul government planned to buy no less than 48 Patriots under a $1-billion project called SAM-X. The purchase package will also include "launch modules and relevant radar systems from Germany beginning in 2008 to replace (South Korea's) aging ground-to-air Nike Hercules missiles," the report said.

The newspaper said the South Korea Defense Ministry was still trying to get the National Assembly, the nation's parliament, to approve funding for the program.

According to reports previous published in the South Korean media, the Patriots will be integrated with an early warning radar system and a command system in a new Korea Air and Missile Defense, or KAMD.

In December, the Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported that the nation's military establishment was "seeking to build its own missile defense against ballistic and cruise missiles under a plan specified in a directive by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff issued after Pyongyang's nuclear test."

"The classified document lays out the (Joint Chiefs of Staff) chairman's ideas and is used as a guideline for the plans," the paper said.

The Chosun Ilbo acknowledged that the KAMD would have "significant limits in terms of intercept capability" compared with the far more extensive and ambitious systems being built by the United States and Japan. This reflected the financial and industrial realities under which a relatively small nation like South Korea has to operate under, for all its powerful and prosperous economy, it said.

The proposed new system therefore will be designed only "to target low-flying missiles," the Chosun Ilbo said.

The paper also correctly predicted that Seoul would look to the Patriot PAC-3 as the backbone of its defense shield in preference to either the sea-launched SM-3 missile favored by Japan, or the Ground-based Midcourse Interceptors, or GBIs, currently being deployed by the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, primarily around Fort Greely, Alaska.

As we have previously noted Seoul, with a population of 14 million, or around a quarter the population of South Korea, is within range of at least 11,000 short-range missiles and artillery tubes of the North Korean Army deployed on the other side of the Demilitarized Zone. Therefore focusing on low-level anti-ballistic missile interceptor batteries like the Patriot, rather than opting for more higher-altitude interception systems such as the GBIs, the SM-3s, THAAD or even Israel's Arrow interceptor, makes sense for South Korean planners.

In fact, South Korea already deploys some SM-2 Block IIIA interceptors on its own U.S.-built Aegis class destroyers.

And back on July 5, we noted in our companion BMD Watch column that South Korea was making efforts to buy more SM-2 Block IIIB missiles manufactured by Raytheon Systems. At that point, the U.S. Department of Defense's Defense Security Cooperation Agency had already asked the U.S. Congress to approve the sale of 42 of the missiles to South Korea. In a report filed June 26, it estimated South Korea would spend $111 million on the SM-2 Block IIIB missiles, MK-13 vertical launchers, and related costs such items such as parts, training, and equipment.

The decision to opt for second-hand Patriots, however, puts a radically original twist on the South Korean BMD acquisition program and reflects both budgetary constraints and a certain ambiguity about developing the program at all even among the top-level planners charged with doing so.

For as we noted previously in these columns, South Korea only entered the BMD arena reluctantly. Its preferred strategic option was to reduce tensions with Pyongyang its Sunshine Policy of reducing tensions and building up trade and diplomatic ties with the North.

However, North Korea's claimed successful nuclear missile test last year and its determination to push ahead with missile programs capable of threatening Japan and even the United States forced South Korean military leaders to the conclusion that they very much need stronger BMD defenses too. That did not mean they had to like it.

Also, South Korea's BMD challenge is unique. No other nation developing BMD programs, not even tiny Israel, faces the threat of such an enormous array of both conventional and potentially even nuclear firepower concentrated within such close range. It makes a great deal of sense, therefore, for Seoul to bet so heavily on the Patriot.

Still, second-hand BMD systems are a startling new strategy on the global stage. Will other nations follow suit? Will international prices for second-hand Patriots and other systems rise and fall as global oil prices do, depending on available stocks and a demand governed by the rise and fall of global tensions? We shall soon see.