Boeing [BA] named its Airborne Laser program leader Greg Hyslop to head another ballistic missile defense program, the Ground-base Midcourse Defense (GMD) project, as it confronts significant challenges.
Hyslop becomes vice president and program manager of the GMD program that is proceeding well in missile defense tests but faces large national and international political challenges, as the United States attempts to install a GMD unit in Europe to guard against threatening Iranian missiles.
The Czech Republic first must give permission for installation of a high-capability GMD radar, and Poland must agree to host a site for 10 GMD interceptors. Those nations now are considering whether to provide those approvals.
Also, Congress is poised to cut, at least somewhat, funding for the European GMD program that President Bush requested for fiscal 2008 that began this month.
And Russia responded with fury to the U.S. European GMD plan, saying it might threaten Russian ICBMs. U.S. military leaders find the claim that 10 interceptors could threaten hundreds of Russian ICBMs and nuclear warheads simply ludicrous.
Bush said that the European GMD system is needed, urgently, to counter possible missiles launched from Middle Eastern nations such as Iran toward targets in Europe or North America. “Iran could develop an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the United States and all of Europe before 2015,” Bush warned recently. He said the time to act is now.
At the same time, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, in an apparent move to mollify Russians, said just hours earlier that perhaps installation of the European GMD system could be slowed until it was clear that Iran is taking concrete action in its missile program, such as testing them.
Gates made that comment as he aired some options for increasing transparency to the Russians of the GMD system.
One option might be to allow Russian observers at the sites, Gates said, but added that the Czech Republic has to agree to any such measure. “Let me repeat for emphasis: Nothing will be done in this regard without the consent of the Czech government,” he said.
Another way to increase transparency about the system might be to tie its activation to “definitive proof of the threat,” including Iranian missile tests, Gates said. “The idea was that we would go forward with the negotiations…complete the negotiations…develop the sites (and) build the sites, but perhaps delay activating them until there was concrete proof of the [missile] threat from Iran,” he said.
Iran, to be sure, already has staged a multiple missiles launch in a test, and launched a missile from a submerged submarine.
Hyslop succeeds, and now will report to, Scott Fancher, the former leader of the Boeing GMD program who earlier this month was promoted to head the entire Boeing Missile Defense Systems unit.
Fancher had led the GMD program through some challenging but successful times. While at one time some lawmakers and other critics said the GMD program wouldn’t succeed in being able to kill enemy missiles in flight, the GMD program has had several successful tests in which it has obliterated target missiles, hitting them dead-on. Those exercises included a test last month where the target missile, a revamped U.S. ICBM, imitated a Korean long-range missile.
The GMD system is a reality, with sites already built and running in Alaska and California, but a question remains as to whether that third GMD installation will be built in Europe.
Though authorization and funding bills still are unfinished in Congress, it seems likely that the European GMD program will receive enough funding to continue in fiscal 2008, leaving only a question just how much the funding will be cut and how long a cut might delay the program.
Stepping into the vacancy created by Hyslop’s promotion, ABL Deputy Program Manager Mike Rinn will be acting ABL program director until a permanent replacement is named.