Iranian Bomb Near?
In March the nuclear crisis involving Iran became more acute, as satellite photos showed what looked to be an excavation for a test shot. That made it appear that Iran was on the verge of having a bomb, rather than, as had been imagined, still some years away from having one. To the extent that the Iranians plan on using enriched uranium rather than plutonium, they can produce a very simple weapon much as the United States did in 1945: a gun in which enough uranium is fired at another chunk of uranium to produce a critical mass. Such a device is so simple that it needs no test; the first U.S. uranium bomb, "Little Boy," was simply dropped on Hiroshima. The drawback is that such a bomb needs a great deal of highly-enriched uranium, and that it is quite massive. It is anything but a missile warhead. Presumably, if this is what the Iranians are doing, they are interested in a test essentially as an announcement that they are a nuclear power. Of course, the hole may also be another move in the war of nerves between the Iranians and those in the West trying to dissuade them from building a bomb.
To build an economical and lightweight (hence deliverable) uranium bomb, like a comparable plutonium bomb, requires either assistance in design and know-how, or extensive tests. Such a bomb works because its core is crushed in precisely the right way by carefully selected explosives. In the past, proliferators have generally chosen to build their weapons of plutonium derived from nuclear reactors. A uranium bomb, even if it were built on the same implosion principles, would have to be somewhat different, because as a metal, uranium differs from plutonium. If the Iranians are relying on enriched uranium, they cannot simply adapt plans provided by A. Q. Khan of Pakistan (reportedly a major bomb-design salesman). His own bomb, supposedly following a Chinese design, seems to have been plutonium-fuelled. Thus, even if the Iranians explode a simple uranium bomb in the near term, it may be some years before they have a deliverable weapon, or at least one deliverable by missile. Another point is that different bomb designs require different amounts of enriched uranium. Therefore, a given rate of uranium enrichment can equate to different bomb-production rates.
Iran is clearly a potential threat, not only to Israel but also to Europe. Various European countries are now interested in anti-missile weapons, but at least for the French such weapons cannot suffice; direct nuclear deterrence is still vital. To make it credible, it must be deliverable in calibrated amounts. The French have therefore quietly removed some of the warheads from their submarine-launched MIRV-capable missiles so that in an emergency a submarine can launch a weapon with single warhead. This measure has also been described as a way of increasing effective range. The submarines can now retarget missiles at sea, based on a library of targets already on board. This is apparently a new capability. Experts also claim that at least some of the French warheads are equipped to produce EMP (electromagnetic pulse) effects. One attraction of an EMP attack is that it can disable a country (at least in theory) without killing very many people.
Theoretically, EMP should devastate micro-electronic devices. It is difficult to forecast the effect of a given level of EMP attack on a modern or even a semi-modern country. The general expectation is that the voltages would devastate delicate micro-circuits. Almost no civilian equipment is hardened in any way, and wiring will probably act as an antenna to pick up an EMP surge.
Ironically, the Iranians are said to have discussed the benefits of EMP attacks against industrialized countries. Those who read such discussions into their somewhat opaque language note that a recent missile test, which ended in an explosion in mid-path, was described as successful. To them, that meant that the missile was intended to burst high above its target to produce an EMP burst. To those skeptical of Iranian sophistication, most of these pronouncements are puffery: every test is a success, and every development is far in advance of anyone else's. For example, the Iranians have recently claimed that their electromagnetic countermeasures are at the same level as NATO's. Skepticism may be in order. Much the same can be said of Iranian claims of vast indigenous missile developments, the products of which bear extraordinarily close resemblance to various Chinese and Western weapons.
For all of that, EMP can be an unnerving threat. Those in the United States who discuss Iranian and North Korean threats talk about how a major EMP strike could "turn off the lights" in the United States for years or even decades. Presumably that is because they doubt that microprocessor-controlled systems can ever revert to something closer to manual control.
EMP creates a surge of electromagnetic power. At the very least it would be expected to reset the microscopic switches in a computer, and thus wreck its program. It is not as clear that it would permanently damage chips, or destroy read-only memories. The problem for an attacker is that he cannot be sure that whatever devastation he created would last. And, in the case of the Iranians, he certainly could not expect to put submerged submarines out of action. It is entirely possible that a submarine commander who ceased to receive communication from home would have orders to take a final sort of revenge.
The Israelis may have the capacity to deliver a pre-emptive EMP attack against Iran, because they have ballistic missiles that can carry warheads into space. Because these weapons are not on board submarines, they cannot be protected against an Iranian EMP attack-if the Iranians are interested in such a tactic. An EMP attack is the only kind that could paralyze Iranian defenses over a wide area, regardless of how dispersed nuclear sites were protected.
Ultimately the EMP issue comes back to deterrence and to the Iranians. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has certainly given the impression that he is undeterrable: he is following the orders of the "Hidden Imam," and Allah presumably will guard (and guide) him and his country. That would seem to be the obvious interpretation of his rather unexpected public call for the one country in the Middle East generally credited with a massive nuclear arsenal, Israel, to be wiped off the map. Israel, moreover, is probably the only country in the world whose government cannot tail to take such a threat seriously. It is generally expected that the Israelis will mount some sort of attack to pre-empt the Iranians; that is not to say that the Iranian nuclear complex would be practicable to target.
Iran has been buying Russian air defense systems, and it is possible that the Iranian president, generally described as somewhat naive, may have bought into the sales claims that these systems provide immunity against air and nuclear attack. As noted, the Iranians have tended to exaggerate their capabilities in the past, and his statements may be more of the same; or he may really believe the propaganda. When the Indians and Pakistanis first tested nuclear weapons, each used somewhat bombastic rhetoric that those more familiar with nuclear weapons found remarkably unrealistic. Yet, a few years later, both governments have come to realize how dangerous their mutual situation is, and they seem to have settled into a posture of nervous deterrence. That may possibly happen before the Iranians have the chance to blow up the Israelis or others. Alternatively, the Iranians may have found a president who really does not understand. If many other Iranians do understand, they may have a rather good reason to force a change in government as a way to avoid national suicide.
It is a matter of considerable national pride that Iranians feel they should have the bomb; theirs is a very old and proud country, and if the Pakistanis (who are looked down on) have it. so should they. After all, they believe they should be the regional superpower. Probably nothing less than a change of government would reverse such a view. What would change would be the regional threat the country represents because of its aggressive rhetoric-and thus the threat the country may well be attracting.
New Infra-Red Sensor Debuts
At the recent Seapower 2006 conference and exhibition in Sydney, Australia, both the European electronics company Thales and the Israeli Rafael showed a new kind of infra-red sensor. In the past, infra-red systems have been used both for search and for tracking, just as radar is used. In each case the sensor maintained surveillance of only a small area. The search device scanned the larger area around, say. a ship; the tracker locked onto something. Devices varied as to whether they picked up point sources of heat or entire images; imaging was often seen as a way of overcoming decoys, which are always point sources.
The new devices cover large areas continuously, much like wide-open electronic receivers used to track hostile emitters. They therefore pick up new targets instantly, because there is no need to wait for the search sensor to come back to a particular patch of sea or sky. In the past, infra-red sensors have been well appreciated because they are completely passive, but they have been disliked for their high false-alarm rates. It turns out that false targets, e.g. owing to sun glinting off waves, are very transient. A staring sensor can reject them because they disappear rapidly, or because they move unrealistically.
The Thales sensor consists of fixed sections that can, for example, be clipped to a mast. Its images are electronically stabilized. This device has been chosen for the new Franco-Italian multi-role frigate, FREMM. The Rafael sensor is mechanically stabilized. The company points out that the same carriage can elevate it to cover different segments of the sky for air defense. Although no application was named at the conference, this system will probably be installed on board the Eilat (Sa'ar V)-class guided-missile corvettes when they are modernized. Modernization will also include installation of an Israeli phased-array air-search radar.