Lost Synapses

With strategic competition in South Asia shifting to the maritime space and nuclear weapon states increasingly relying on sea power, the Indian Ocean region (IOR) has become a theatre for trilateral security competition between India, Pakistan, and China. Developments over the past several years showcase the complicated nature of the situation in the IOR, and lead to a number of difficult questions about strategic stability. What are the drivers of nuclear escalation in the Indian Ocean region (IOR), as well as the implications for peace and stability in the region? Will changing threat perceptions in the IOR, especially as China’s People’s Liberation Army-Navy (PLA-N) demonstrates increased capabilities, lead New Delhi to forge stronger naval ties with the United States? As states in the IOR contest for naval nuclear supremacy and project newly developed capabilities, this article examines the risk of friction and misperceptions that challenges the stability of the Indian Ocean. In 2015, China carried out a flight test of its long-range sea-based nuclear deterrent: the JL-2. With an estimated range of up to 7,200km, the JL-2 can target assets in continental India from Chinese waters. Moreover, Chinese nuclear submarines continue to patrol the Indian Ocean, exemplifying Beijing’s willingness to project power in the IOR. China uses advanced military assets, such as attack submarines (SSNs), for ‘piracy operations’ in the IOR. However, the presence of SSNs, which are not appropriate for anti-pirate missions, intensify regional misperceptions. Beijing’s support to Pakistan’s nuclear and ballistic missile program (M-11 missile technology transfers), and its recent announcement to provide Pakistan with eight diesel-electric attack submarines have alarmed India’s strategic community, which fears that these sales will bolster Pakistan’s sea-denial strategy.

Furthermore, Beijing’s naval assertiveness in the South China Sea (SCS) has raised concernswith Indian officials, who see a correlation between aggressive Chinese patrolling in the SCS and increasing deployments in the IOR. Some believe China might use its bases in the SCS to project power in the Indian Ocean. The prospect of active patrols by nuclear-armed Chinese submarines has intensified India’s surveillance. The challenge to New Delhi’s domination in the Indian Ocean has led New Delhi to bolster its maritime partnership with the United States. The US-India Joint Strategic Vision for Asia-Pacific and the Indian Ocean serves as a roadmap for bilateral cooperation on safeguarding maritime security and preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. On India’s other border, Pakistan tested the Babur-3 submarine-launched cruise missile (SLCM) in early 2017. Babur-3 is reportedly capable of carrying a nuclear payload and designed for integration with the Agosta 90B diesel electric submarine. These developments augment the shifts in Pakistan’s military and nuclear force structure, which was traditionally dominated by the army. As Pakistan’s navy develops a submarine-based nuclear deterrent, there are clear indications of accommodating the navy within Pakistan’s command and control (C2). However, questions arise regarding Islamabad’s ability to safely and reliably manage a submarine-based nuclear force given the doubts raised over the robustness of Pakistan’s command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, information, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C412SR) systems. Analysts have suggested that a balanced and effective nuclear C2 system faces challenges in Pakistan. When Pakistan’s military leadership took the reins of presidential power in 1999, the country’s civilian institutions and other services came under the army’s political control. This meant that the air force and navy chiefs could no longer contribute their views on an equal footing with the army chief. Therefore, the lack of an effective C2 has highlighted discernible doubts regarding Pakistan’s ability to communicate with the Agosta submarines to put negative controls on weapons. Pakistan’s stated policy of “first-use” of nuclear weapons against India coupled with a weak C2 has exacerbated India’s security concerns. India views Islamabad’s attempt to acquire second-strike capabilities as attempts to gain strategic technological and capabilities parity with India, giving impetus to the action-reaction cycle.

Given security threat perceptions in IOR, Indian naval planners and strategists are convinced that nuclear submarines will provide the most reliable deterrent. India’s pursuit of a sea-based nuclear force is thus a logical step in its desire to achieve assured retaliatory capabilities. Few analysts argue that India’s new K-4 nuclear-capable SLBM, coupled with India’s nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine program could lead to further destabilization and conflict in the region. There is little merit in such an argument. India’s ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) force will not only improve the operational capabilities of India’s sea-based leg of its triad but also enable New Delhi to maintain balance of power in the IOR. To maintain a credible minimum deterrent vis-à-vis China and Pakistan and to ensure its arsenal’s survivability against a preemptive first strike, New Delhi must focus on developing submarine launched ballistic missiles (SSBM) technology and SSBN capabilities. The primary objective of India’s Arihant-class SSBNs is to deter conflict and coercion against India by its adversaries. India’s 2015 maritime security strategy document re-prioritized & reformulated deterrence as India’s first priority and war fighting as the second. Therefore, India’s SSBN force should be seen as a critical enabler of its no-first use policy.

As China, India, and Pakistan employ nuclear weapons at sea, the India Ocean is slipping from a ‘Zone of Peace’ to a hotbed of nuclear politics. To help reduce tensions, India and the United States have engaged in cooperative discussions about India opening up its military bases to the United States in exchange for access to weapons technology to help it narrow the gap with China. The two sides will also hold talks on anti-submarine warfare (ASW), an area of sensitive military technology and tactics. The process of India-US security-burden sharing in the IOR should serve as a building block for an enduring navy-to-navy relationship that should grow into a shared ASW capability. At a time of a qualitative reordering of the Asia-Pacific, stability in the Indian Ocean region hinges on collaborative efforts by India and the United States to keep the seas open and peaceful.

Sylvia Mishra is a researcher with Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi and is presently with the Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey, California. Her current research is focused on South Asian security issues and nuclear dynamics, India-US defence cooperation and disruptive technologies. She is a PONI Nuclear Scholar and an alumna of London School of Economics.

JAMES M. ACTON

Testimony

February 23, 2017

U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission

It is an honor to testify before you today. Thank you for the opportunity. I am a senior fellow and co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. I hold a Ph.D. in theoretical physics and, for the last five years, have been studying the development of hypersonic weapons in the United States, China, and Russia from both a technical and policy perspective. I would like to focus my testimony on what can be learned about China’s hypersonic boost-glide weapon program from flight tests, and the implications of the program for the security of the United States and our allies.

HYPERSONIC WEAPON TECHNOLOGIES

“Hypersonic” speeds are usually defined to mean at least five times the speed of sound. There are three basic approaches to delivering a payload accurately over long ranges at such speeds: hypersonic cruise missiles, terminally guided ballistic missiles, and boost-glide weapons.

I will not discuss hypersonic cruise missiles in any depth, but will note that a number of experts, including Mark Stokes and my former Carnegie colleague Lora Saalman, have found considerable evidence that China, like the United States, is conducting extensive research in this area. There have been some reports that China has flight-tested a scramjet engine—the type of propulsion system that would be required for sustained hypersonic flight—although I am unable to assess their veracity. That said, if these reports are incorrect, it should come as no surprise if China conducts such a test in the near future.

A terminally guided ballistic missile follows the same trajectory as a normal ballistic missile until it re-enters the atmosphere, at which point fins on the re-entry vehicle steer it towards a target. A boost-glide weapon, like a ballistic missile, is launched by a large rocket. However, rather than arcing high above the atmosphere, a hypersonic glider is launched on a flatter trajectory that either reenters the atmosphere quickly or does not leave it at all, before gliding unpowered to its target. How far a re-entry vehicle can glide depends on its initial speed and its aerodynamic performance. In theory, gliders with global ranges could be developed, but no state has successfully flown one anywhere near that distance.

Although terminally guided ballistic missiles and boost-glide weapons have quite different trajectories, they are not fundamentally different technologies; rather, they lie at different ends of the spectrum of maneuvering re-entry vehicles. The more aerodynamic lift that such a re-entry vehicle generates, compared to the drag it encounters, the farther it can glide.

ORIGINS OF CHINA’S BOOST-GLIDE PROGRAM

China’s boost-glide program may well be an outgrowth of its program to develop terminally guided ballistic missiles (just as U.S. efforts to develop hypersonic gliders can trace their lineage back to U.S. programs to develop terminally guided re-entry vehicles in the 1960s and 1970s). China has developed such missiles, including the DF-21C and DF-21D, for the purpose of delivering conventional warheads. Given the relatively short range of China’s glider tests—a point I will return to at greater length—it is possible, though by no means certain, that its glider is essentially a “souped-up” version of an existing type of terminally guided re-entry vehicle (though without access to the design of the glider it is difficult to say much definitively).

Lora Saalman has found that the unclassified Chinese literature on hypersonic gliders draws very heavily from the unclassified American literature on the same subject. There is little doubt that Chinese scientists pay very close attention to U.S. developments and may even be trying to copy them. However, I have no evidence—one way or the other—as to whether China’s program uses classified foreign information acquired by espionage.

CHINESE BOOST-GLIDE WEAPON TESTING

China has conducted at least seven tests of a hypersonic boost-glide vehicle, starting in January 2014. In January 2016, Admiral Haney, then commander of U.S. Strategic Command, confirmed publicly that China had conducted six boost-glide tests. Since then, there have been media reports of one more test in April 2016. Although there has been no official confirmation that this test involved a hypersonic glider, the available information (discussed further below) strongly suggests that it did. It is unclear whether this test series has concluded, and if so, whether and when China will commence another test series.

For its part, China has not, contrary to some media reporting, explicitly acknowledged having tested a boost-glide weapon. While Beijing has acknowledged testing something on various occasions, its statements have been vague and have not included any descriptions of the test.

It is widely assumed, including by me, that each of these seven tests involved the same glider—although there is no independent confirmation of this assumption. The glider was initially called the Wu-14 and later the DF-ZF by news media. Wu-14 is probably the Pentagon’s name for the system (and given what is known about the Department of Defense’s naming conventions for foreign space and missile systems, this designation probably refers to the booster, although it has become the de facto name of the glider). DF-ZF is presumably a Chinese designation, although its origins are unclear.

Some information about the tests can be inferred from the “keep-out zones” declared by China before all but one of them to warn pilots of falling debris (ahead of the December 2014 test, China appears to have announced the closure of certain air lanes, but did not declare keep-out zones per se). These keep-out zones are available from a well-respected Chinese blog run by an author (or authors) with the penname “KKTT.” Because there is no publicly accessible archive of such information, I have only been able to confirm the accuracy of the keep-out zones for the August 2014 test.

Based on these keep-out zones, the range of each of the tests is shown in the table below. It appears that China has tested the DF-ZF over at least three different distances varying from 1,250 km to 2,100 km.1 Importantly, the glide range is almost certainly significantly shorter that the full testing difference.

Date Range (km) Notes

January 9, 2014 (1,750) - Only one keep-out zone declared. That zone was, however, identical to one of the zones for August 2014 test, strongly suggesting an identical flight path.

August 7, 2014 (1,750) - Probable failure.

December 2, 2014 (1,750?) - Flight path closures but not keep-out zones declared. Flight path possibly similar to the previous two tests.

June 7, 2015 (1,750) - Flight path similar but not identical to August 2014 test.

August 20, 2015 (2,100) Terminal maneuvering possibly planned.

November 23, 2015 (1,250) - NA

April 22, 2016(1,250) - Flight path identical to November 2015 test.

Dates and ranges of the seven known tests of China’s DF-ZF glider. Note that range refers to total distance, not glide distance, which is almost certainly significantly shorter.

Interesting, the testing range did not increase as the tests series progressed; in fact, the last two tests were conducted over the shortest range. In all but one of the tests, the available drop-zones were arranged linearly, suggesting a more-or-less straight flight path with minimal maneuvering. The fifth test, in August 2015, is a potential exception. There is some evidence that the intended flight path involved a turn shortly before impact. This maneuver has been described in the media as “extreme”—although, as shown in the figure below, the data can be interpreted in different ways. It is entirely possible that the maneuver was “gentle,” rather than extreme, and also that it was never attempted.

The keep-out zones reflect flight plans; they do not provide any evidence as to whether a test was actually successful. Indeed, for an outside observer to determine whether a test was successful or not is potentially extremely difficult. In part, the challenge is technical. The United States can certainly detect the launch of a boost-glide weapon with infra-red sensors carried by early-warning satellites (and possibly by other means too). Subsequently, it is possible that the glider produces so much heat through atmospheric friction that early-warning satellites can continue to monitor it. If this is not the case, however, then the United States may have no means to monitor a test directly during the glide phase. In this case, the United States would have to rely on indirect means (such as intercepted Chinese reports of the test) in assessing the outcome.

Main figure: The keep-out zones for China’s DF-ZF test on August 20, 2015. The inferred trajectory, shown in black, connects the center points of the two zones nearest the launch point. The actual intended trajectory may have been different. If it was, it is possible that little or no cross-range maneuvering was planned. Insert: An enlarged image of the impact zone, showing two possible flight paths: an “extreme” maneuver (A) and a gentle maneuver (B). These trajectories should be regarded as purely notional since the available data is consistent with any number of different flight paths.

Moreover, assessing whether a test was successful requires knowing China’s goals for the test, and they may not be apparent. For example, imagine that China, unbeknownst to the United States, sought to land a glider within, say, 50 m of a target. If it actually missed by 10 km—twenty times as much, China might consider such a test to be a failure or least only a partial success. However, the United States—if it were capable were capable of monitoring the test—might incorrectly conclude the test was successful because the glider had flown over the entire planned range.

In any case, various media outlets have reported that all of the test flights were successful. The claim seems to derive, at least in part, from a statement by Haney on January 22, 2016 (two months after China’s sixth test flight) that China’s most recent test was its “sixth successful test.” Interestingly, however, Haney gave another speech at a different venue on the same day in which, accordingly to his prepared remarks, he made a similar claim but omitted the word “successful.” This difference suggests Haney may have misspoken on the first occasion.

In fact, there is considerable evidence that at least the August 2014 test failed (probably as a result of a booster failure). Shortly after the test, pictures of rocket debris appeared on Chinese social media, which I analyzed along with Jeffrey Lewis and Catherine Dill of the James C. Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. There is sufficient information in the photos to geolocate the crash site, which turns out to be outside the declared drop-zones and uncomfortably close to a hot spring resort in the Ordos Desert—suggesting the test was unsuccessful. The pictures also show large orange clouds emanating from the crash site. They are characteristic of the N2O4/UDMH liquid propellant used in all Long March rockets, which are derived from China’s long-range, liquid-fueled missiles. The large quantity of unburned fuel left in the rocket stage (or stages) that crashed also suggests a premature termination of the flight. Moreover, on August 22, 2014, the South China Morning Post reported that “two sources close to the military” in China had stated that “the vehicle broke up soon after it was launched.” In January 2016, IHS Jane’s Defense Weekly reported that U.S. officials had concluded that the August 2014 test was a failure, but that the other five tests conducted up to that date had been successful.

It may well be the case that all but one of China’s seven tests to date were successful—although there is some far-from-conclusive evidence to the contrary. Specifically, China’s conducting multiple tests along identical flight paths, its reducing the range of the sixth and seventh flights relative to the first five, and its use of straight flight paths for the sixth and seventh flight after maneuvering may have been attempted during the fifth test could suggest—but certainly do not prove—that other problems were encountered during testing.

ASSESSMENT OF CHINA’S BOOST-GLIDE PROGRAM

Based on this test program, I offer various cautious conclusions about China’s boost-glide program (Mandarin speakers may be able to glean more information from the technical literature).

First off, there is considerable uncertainty about many basic aspects of China’s glider. How fast does it travel on re-entry? What is its lift-to-drag ratio? What guidance system does it use? How accurately can it hit a target? Was the technology developed indigenously or is it based on classified foreign sources?

Media reporting tends not to reflect this uncertainty. In fact, many claims about the glider in media reports—such as its speed—are highly questionable. I believe that, in a number of cases, Chinese researchers or journalists, who know effectively nothing about the program, simply copy descriptions of U.S. programs. The claims made in these articles are then portrayed in the U.S. press as accurate descriptions of China’s program. To give an example: an article in Aviation Week that described the January 2014 test contained a picture of a glider published in a “Chinese academic engineering article.” However, as a Google search immediately revealed, this picture was of the U.S. Advanced Hypersonic Weapon, and not an indigenous Chinese glider.

That said, the available evidence tentatively suggests that China’s hypersonic glider development program is significantly less advanced than the United States’. China appears to have tested its glider to a range of no more than 2,100 km. By contrast, the U.S. Advanced Hypersonic Weapon—a glider that has been successfully tested across 3,800 km and was due to be tested across more than 6,000 km in August 2014 before the test was cut short by a booster failure. Moreover, contemporary U.S. tests generally involve much greater cross-range maneuvering than any of China’s tests to date.

Of course, it is important to be cautious about generalizing on the basis of one test series. China may have adopted a gradual and cautious pattern of flight-testing, and in future tests, it may fly the same glider to a somewhat longer range or attempt greater cross-range maneuvering. The United States, for example, did not immediately test the AHW to its full potential range, so there is a precedent for an evolutionary approach to flight-testing. Continued observation of the program may shed more light in due course.

Third, regardless of the exact nature of the glider tested last year, China is likely to face significant difficulties in developing gliders with long ranges (i.e. a few thousand kilometers or more). Various analysts have speculated that China could develop a boost-glide weapon with a global range simply by placing the DF-ZF on top of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). Such a weapon would almost certainly fail since a glider designed to operate at the speeds characteristic of medium- or intermediate-range ballistic missile would almost certainly be destroyed if deployed at the much higher speeds characteristic of an ICBM.

In fact, China would face various challenges in developing a long-range glider. Such a glider would probably require a higher lift-to-drag ratio than China’s existing system and would almost certainly need to commence its glide path at a higher speed. The following is a non-exhaustive list of the challenges involved in designing such a glider:

First, through theory, wind tunnel testing, and computer modeling, China would need to understand the relevant aerodynamic regime. This regime may be significantly more complex than the one relevant to the DF-ZF.

Second, and relatedly, China would need to develop and validate computer codes to assist with designing a long-range glider.

Third, and most importantly, this glider would have to be able to withstand the greater heat production associated with higher speeds and higher lift-to-drag ratios. This is a problem of both aerodynamics and material science, and significant manufacturing challenges could be involved in fabricating the aeroshell.

Fourth, a long-range glider would need a control system capable of controlling flight in a more aerodynamically challenging regime.

Fifth, navigation at longer distances could also be a challenge. The United States has chosen the Global Positioning System, or GPS, for this purpose. China has started to deploy its own space-based precision navigation and timing system, Beidou, which is eventually intended to provide global coverage. Nonetheless, ensuring the reception of navigation data during all stages of the boost-glide flight path presents its own set of technical difficulties and becomes more difficult at higher speeds.

Sixth, testing at long distances could also be a challenge for China. To date, China has generally tested missiles within its own territory, limiting the range of tests to a few thousand kilometers (two tests of the DF-5 into the Pacific Ocean in 1980 appear be the only tests conducted partially outside its territory). This limitation has probably not hindered ballistic missile development much because ICBMs can be tested on a “lofted” trajectory that limits their range while still exercising their full capability. However, it could create real problems for boost-glide weapon testing. A “coiled” trajectory would solve this problem, but only at the expense of introducing daunting new technical challenges. Alternatively, China could test across the Pacific Ocean (as the United States does)—but doing so would probably create political controversy that China might rather avoid.

Given sufficient time and resources, China should be able to overcome these challenge, just as the United States seems to have done, as well as the other obstacles it would face. This process is, however, unlikely to be quick or painless.

In short, it is certainly possible, by examining the available data selectively, to paint a picture of Chinese hypersonic boost-glide capabilities that are already advanced and rapidly evolving. Overall, however, the available evidence does not support categorical statements about whether the existing Chinese glider would be an effective weapon, or about the pace at which the program will progress. This is not to say that the more alarmist accounts are necessarily wrong, but it is to argue that there is a significant degree of uncertainty.

STRATEGIC DRIVERS AND IMPLICATIONS OF CHINA’S BOOST-GLIDE PROGRAM

There is significant uncertainty about why China is pursuing boost-glide technology. Assuming that China successfully completes the development of such a system and deploys it, a critical issue will be whether the payload is nuclear or conventional. If the ultimate decision is to integrate a nuclear warhead, it will probably reflect concerns about China’s continued ability to penetrate U.S. missile defenses, including potentially more capable future defenses. In this case, the deployment of boost- glide systems would serve to preserve the status quo. By contrast, if China deploys a boost-glide system armed with a conventional warhead, then it may be seeking longer-range conventional strike capabilities including, perhaps, the ability to target the continental United States. In this case, the glider program could signal that China sees a growing role for strategic conventional weapons in its military doctrine. Of course, it is also possible that China could deploy both conventionally armed and nuclear-armed gliders.

That said, it is also possible that China does not currently have firm ideas about the purpose of a boost-glide system. China has a well-documented history of initiating advanced strategic military programs mainly because it worries about other states opening up a technology gap, without necessarily being convinced by their ultimate military utility for China. Such technologies, including the neutron bomb, are not always fielded. While the ultimate deployment of boost-glide weapons is probable, it should not, therefore, be regarded as a given.

Lee Fuell from the National Air and Space Intelligence Center has testified to this commission that his organization assesses that China’s glider program is associated with that country’s nuclear forces. The National Air and Space Intelligence Center has access to sources of information that I do not, and I have no particular reason to doubt this assessment. That said, the information I have at my disposal does not enable me to draw a conclusion about any intended payload.

The one piece of evidence that may suggest China’s aim is to arm a boost-glide system with a nuclear warhead is its use of a liquid-fueled booster (today, China’s liquid-fueled missiles are used exclusively to deliver nuclear weapons). However, there are other possible explanations for this choice of booster. It may have been dictated by the technical requirements of the mission (including the mass of the glider and required injection speed). Alternatively, like the United States, China may simply use decommissioned nuclear missiles for testing hypersonic gliders on cost grounds.

One possible indicator of China’s intentions is the accuracy of its glider. For a conventionally armed glider to be military effective, it must have an accuracy of a few meters. A nuclear-armed glider would be effective if it were 10 or even 100 times less accurate. While there is no publicly available information about the accuracy of the DF-FZ, classified information about this issue could be a useful way of assessing the glider’s likely payload.

Much has been made about the potential of hypersonic gliders to penetrate U.S. missile defenses, although some nuance is needed to understand the full implications. In broad terms, defenses can be divided into area defenses, which are capable of protecting large swathes of territory, and point defenses, which are capable of protecting particular targets or small clusters of targets. The Ground- Based Mid-Course Defense system deployed in Alaska and California to protect the United States against a North Korean ICBM by intercepting warheads as they pass through outer space is an example of an area defense. Patriot missiles, which are designed to intercept short-range missiles in their terminal phase, are examples of point defenses.

A sports analogy may be helpful. Area defenses are the military equivalent of football’s defensive linemen, who try to knock down a pass as soon as it leaves the quarterback’s hands to protect the whole of the downfield area. Area defenses require an incoming missile to be intercepted early in flight while it can still reach a large number of potential targets. For technical reasons, gliders are very difficult to track early in flight, and hence would probably be particularly effective at defeating area defenses. As a result, Chinese nuclear-armed intercontinental gliders could help China’s military to extend the existing strategic balance into the foreseeable future. More ominously, if those gliders were accurate enough to deliver conventional warheads, they could expose the United States to a qualitatively new threat that would be extremely difficult to defend against.

Point defenses are different. They are the equivalent of a cornerback shadowing a wide receiver downfield. It is much easier for a cornerback to knock down a pass than a defensive lineman, but the cornerback can only protect a very small part of the playing field. Against China, point defenses play an important role in defending U.S. and allied military assets in the western Pacific. Hypersonic gliders would probably be somewhat less effective at penetrating these defenses than China’s existing ballistic missiles. Although hypersonic gliders re-enter the atmosphere at extremely high speeds, they slow significantly over the course of their trajectory because of air resistance, making them potentially easier to intercept close to a defended target, compared to ballistic missiles. As a result, conventionally armed gliders of regional ranges would probably not enhance the threat already faced by U.S. forces and U.S. allies in the western Pacific.

In short, the military threat posed by Chinese gliders, should they be deployed, will depend on their range and payload. While regional gliders and nuclear-armed gliders would probably not change the status quo, conventionally armed intercontinental gliders would create a qualitatively new threat. It will, therefore, be important to monitor the program closely to better discern China’s objectives.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Against this background, I offer three policy suggestions for the United States.

First, the United States should seek to initiate a dialogue with China on developing concrete confidence-building measures related to hypersonic weapons. Both sides are developing such weapons; both sides worry about the other’s efforts. In theory, reciprocal confidence-building measures, such as data exchanges, could be mutually beneficial. To be sure, even starting negotiations—let alone actually agreeing on confidence-building measures—could be extremely difficult, but the costs of trying are small.

Second, if there are currently weaknesses in the United States’ ability to monitor gliders in flight, the U.S. Department of Defense should initiate a study to identify possible solutions, with a strong focus on affordability. Such measures would be useful against Russia, as well as China.

Third, the United States should accelerate efforts into developing point defenses against hypersonic gliders. One such defense—a variant of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD)—has been openly discussed, and is promising because it would utilize the interceptor’s ability to lock onto an intense heat source (such as a glider). However, the ability of other technologies to intercept gliders merits a closer examination.

NOTES

1 It is possible, but unlikely, that the range of December 2014 test fell outside these bounds.

http://carnegieendowment.org/2017/02/23/china-s-advanced-weapons-pub-68095

linked to: 

Using commercial satellite imagery and information released in a declassified US intelligence report, Jane's has geolocated two facilities associated with Pakistan's nuclear programme: a suspected centrifuge plant at Sihala in Islamabad Capital Territory and a uranium enrichment site at Gadwal, near Wah Cantonment, Punjab province.

At Sihala, imagery analysis has revealed the construction of substantial new industrial facilities bearing some of the features of a gas centrifuge production/assembly plant, while at Gadwal, Jane's has identified one building that clearly displays the signatures of a 1990s-era gas centrifuge enrichment plant.

As Pakistan does not currently require enriched uranium for its civilian or military reactors, any expansion of its enrichment capacity would be likely to reflect a commitment to enlarging the country's nuclear arsenal.

The US Air Force (USAF) plans to deploy five Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and approximately 105 personnel, currently based at Andersen Air Force Base on Guam, to Yokota Air Base in Japan from May to October 2017.

The USAF said in a 7 April statement that summer operations from Guam of the high-altitude, long-endurance surveillance UAV are "adversely impacted by the frequency of inclement weather, including typhoon activities".

"This rotational deployment of the Global Hawk is temporary but necessary to provide a base from which the platform can be reliably operated during the summer."

Kuwait has requested services worth an estimated USD319 million to upgrade Al-Mubarak Air Base, the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) announced on 6 April.

The DSCA said the requested services include design, construction, and procurement of facilities for key airfield operations, command-and-control, readiness, sustainment, and life support at Al-Mubarak Air Base. The facilities will be replacements for the existing operations centre, hangars, training facilities, and barracks.

The US Air Force (USAF) has revealed details of the roles undertaken by the service's General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc (GAASI) MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in liberating the Syrian city of Manbij from the Islamic State.

Pilots and sensor operators assigned to squadrons across the 432nd Wing (WG) and the 432nd Air Expeditionary Wing (AEW) provided close air support (CAS) and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) needed for coalition partners to drive Islamic State fighters out of the city in 2016, the USAF disclosed in an article posted on its website on 6 April.

"From May to August 2016 … MQ-1Bs and MQ-9s flew nearly 500 sorties from … [ground control stations located in] the continental United States," said Colonel Case Cunningham, the 432nd WG/432nd AEW commander, adding, "Those sorties resulted in nearly 11,000 hours of persistent attack and reconnaissance in direct support of our partnered forces on the ground."

As noted by the USAF, operating over a built-up area provided particular challenges, "It was significantly difficult in the end because there were snipers and improvised explosive devices in the city centre, making it hard for the [Syrian Democratic Forces - SDF] to advance," 1st Lieutenant Gregg, a 432nd WG Reaper pilot was quoted as saying. "We had to maintain very specific look angles down alleys while maintaining a close eye for civilians. That required very precise strikes and MQ-1 and MQ-9s were able to fulfil that role."

This need for the UAV pilots and sensor operators to safeguard against incurring civilian casualties extended to the SDF also, with Lieutenant Colonel Ronnie, a 432 WG squadron commander, saying, "One of the things I saw in Manbij that was truly unique was the proximity we were finding a lot of the targets to friendly forces. They were sometimes within 100 m and sometimes inside of 50 m."

The Russian government has reportedly approved a joint venture (JV) with India that will produce Kamov Ka-226T 'Hoodlum' light multirole helicopters for the Indian Armed Forces.

The proposed JV supports a government-to-government agreement between the two countries signed in September 2016, through which India will procure at least 200 Ka-226T helicopters for the Indian Army Aviation Corps and the Indian Air Force.

Citing unidentified Indian defence ministry officials, reports in India on 6 April said the decision to form the JV had been delayed due to concerns over costs but that Russian president Vladimir Putin had now given approval for the JV to be established.

Officials cited by the reports said that the two JV partners - Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and Russian Helicopters, a subsidiary of Russian defence industry holding company Rostec - will sign an agreement soon to finalise the new company that will produce the helicopters and provide related support.

Once the JV has been officially established negotiations related to workshare, technology transfers, and the scope of licenced production can commence. The JV is expected to build about 140 of the required helicopters, with the remainder delivered in an initial batch by Russian Helicopters. Deliveries of this initial batch are expected to start in 2019.

Speaking to Jane's in March, Viktor Kladov, Rostec's director for international co-operation and regional policy, confirmed that the JV to produce the Ka-226T in India was close to conclusion but also pointed to potential cost issues in establishing joint-investment defence companies.

"We are now finalising the terms of the JV to produce the Ka-226T," he said. "This will be a fly-by-wire helicopter made from composite materials, with the best engine and avionics. That's going to be a great helicopter and we are doing it in partnership with India."

Speaking generally, Kladov said JVs were not always an ideal structure for joint defence production programmes because they could increase costs.

Harold Vilches, a 23-year-old Chilean, exported $80 million in contraband gold. It all started with a Google search.

As the minutes ticked by on the afternoon of April 28, 2015, Harold Vilches watched stoically while customs officers at Santiago’s international airport scrutinized his carry-on. Inside the roller bag was 44 pounds of solid gold, worth almost $800,000, and all the baby-faced, 21-year-old college student wanted was clearance to get on a red-eye to Miami. Vilches had arrived at the airport six hours early because he thought there might be some trouble—he’d heard that customs had recently seized shipments from competing smugglers. But Vilches had done this run, or sent people to do it, more than a dozen times, and he’d prepared his falsified export paperwork with extra care. He was pretty sure he wouldn’t have any trouble. While he waited, he texted his contacts in Florida, telling them he’d already cleared customs.

The plan was to hand off the gold at the Miami airport to a pair of guards, who would load it into an armored truck for the short trip to NTR Metals Miami LLC, a company that buys gold in quantities large and small and sells it into the global supply chain. The modesty of its shabby office, where a receptionist sits behind an inch-thick acrylic barrier, belies the amount of business that goes on inside. U.S. Department of Justice investigators believe NTR Metals Miami has bought at least $3 billion in South American gold in the past four years, much of it from illegal mining operations, people familiar with the investigation say.

Vilches didn’t need this headache. In just two years he had rapidly risen in the ranks of Latin American gold smugglers. Although he was barely old enough to order a beer in Miami, he’d won a $101 million contract to supply a gold dealer in Dubai. That hadn’t exactly worked out—the Dubai company was after him for $5.2 million it says he misappropriated—but still, in a brief career he’d acquired and then resold more than 4,000 lb. of gold, according to Chilean prosecutors. U.S. investigators and Chilean prosecutors suspect almost all of it was contraband.

That evening at the airport, Vilches employed his standard cover story, saying that the gold came from coins acquired from customers and recast as ingots. The customs officers weren’t buying it. The laboratory Vilches had used to vouch for the gold wasn’t government-certified, they said, and they doubted his claims that the gold had come from coins. Vilches was irate. He couldn’t believe it when the man behind the desk called his boss and then relayed orders from above: If it’s Vilches’s gold, seize it.

Investigators with the Policía de Investigaciones, Chile’s equivalent of the FBI, had been monitoring Vilches for months, intercepting his phone calls and scouring the export papers he’d submitted. The kid was clever, they agreed, but who was he working for? “I thought there was someone behind him, always,” says José Luis Pérez, a Chilean prosecutor on the case.

After the airport officials confiscated Vilches’s gold, they let him go. For the next 15 months, Chilean authorities allowed Vilches to bring illegal gold in and ship it out as they built a case, searching for associates and those above him. They listened in on various telephones, read Vilches’s text messages, and followed couriers. They watched as smugglers brought gold south from Peru, across remote stretches of desert and through valleys in the Andes Mountains, or west from Argentina, driving over the snowy mountain pass in the shadow of 22,800-foot-high Aconcagua, then down to Santiago and Vilches’s headquarters, a place police nicknamed “The Bunker.” Inside, Vilches assayed, weighed, and paid for the gold. He melted it down and recast it as ingots, then flew it, or used a family member to fly it, to Miami.

To their growing amazement, the police never found the larger organization they presumed was supporting and protecting Vilches. There was, as far as they could determine, no bigger fish. Finally, in August 2016, they arrested him. Investigators say they have documented $80 million in gold shipments that moved through his hands via eight shell companies he established in Chile and Miami—and they think there was much more. They charged Vilches and four associates, including his wife and her father, with racketeering, smuggling, customs fraud, and money laundering. None of them have been tried, and the case remains open. Vilches’s wife and father-in-law declined through their lawyer to comment. Today, Vilches lives with his wife in an apartment in a rundown part of Santiago; he’s under house arrest from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.

In exchange for his release from jail, Vilches provided extensive testimony that has allowed Chilean prosecutors and the U.S. Department of Justice to try to build a huge, multinational gold smuggling case. Interviews with police and prosecutors in Chile and the U.S. and hundreds of pages of police files describe Vilches’s part in a black market that adds literally tons of illegally mined and contraband gold to the international economy every year.

In the past decade and a half, global gold consumption has risen by almost 1,000 tons a year, to about 4,300 tons, according to the World Gold Council, a London-based industry group. Legal mining operations haven’t kept up with demand, so illegal mines controlled by criminal gangs, from the Amazon to central Africa, help cover the deficit, according to Verité, a nonprofit group in Amherst, Mass., that’s researched the illegal gold trade. A 2016 Verité study found that five countries in Latin America shipped 40 tons of gold from illegal mines to the U.S. in one year, almost twice the legal exports from those countries. South America’s illegal gold mines, most of them in the Amazon basin, are toxic pits in which mobs of laborers use fire hoses and mercury to extract nearly pure gold nuggets from the red earth. According to a finding by the United Nations, the industry thrives on child labor, devastates the environment, and enables prostitution at ramshackle camps around the mines. The gold moves from smuggler to smuggler, then into a network of refiners and traders, all feeding the world’s voracious demand.

Vilches, a city kid, never saw any of this, but he did grow up around gold. His father, Mario, owns a jewelry shop; his uncle Enrique, an evangelical preacher, built Joyas Barón, a chain of 18 jewelry stores. Enrique has more than once attracted the attention of the authorities. In 1998, Chilean prosecutors caught Ecuadorean smugglers with 18 ingots of gold at the airport, and they claimed to be delivering it to Enrique. (He was cleared of all criminal charges after arguing that police set him up.) In March 2015, Enrique was sentenced to five years’ probation for tax fraud by an appeals court in Santiago. Last year tax authorities filed further charges alleging that Enrique had organized an enormous accounting scam and owed an estimated $18 million in back taxes. Speaking on Chilean TV, Enrique Vilches denied all connections to his nephew’s gold smuggling. “I don’t have any commercial relationship with what’s being investigated,” he said. “[There’s] no situation that involves me, therefore I want to remain absolutely separated from this situation.”

By 15, Harold was working for his father’s business. Within a year, his dad was stuffing his backpack with up to 50 million pesos ($78,000) in cash and sending him to the bank to make deposits. In 2013, Vilches entered college at the Universidad Mayor in Santiago to study business administration. He hadn’t been there long when his father had a stroke, and he cut back his classwork to focus on the family business. If he was going to be doing that, he decided, he wanted to do more than buy and sell trinkets. He intended to make some real money, and that meant getting into the bulk gold business.

His first move was to persuade Gonzalo Farias, a metals exporter in Santiago, to take him on as a supplier. In September 2013, Vilches made his first delivery to Farias—6.6 lb. of gold legally acquired in Chile. He made several more such deliveries. But he wanted to be bigger. He went around Farias and cut a deal directly with Fujairah Gold, a Dubai-based company that Farias supplied. In June 2014, Vilches signed a contract to deliver 6,000 lb. of gold over the next 12 months to Fujairah’s head office. The contract began with 90 lb. the first month, then ratcheted up. He didn’t have the money to buy that much gold, so the company gave him access to an account holding $5.2 million. This was his big break—the contract was potentially worth more than $100 million. He stood to make $2 million to $6 million in profit.

This was beyond ambitious for Vilches—there weren’t enough available gold coins and jewelry in Chile to fill Fujairah’s orders. So Vilches decided to become a smuggler. It was easy: He Googled gold dealers in Peru. He found Rodolfo Soria Cipriano, one of the country’s most prolific exporters, according to Peruvian newspaper El Comercial. An answer came quickly. Vilches told investigators Soria promised to set him up with all the gold he wanted if he showed up with the cash. Vilches said he didn’t ask where the gold came from. Whatever its source, he evaded export controls and moved the gold into Chile without paying taxes or duties, prosecutors say.

Soria made introductions to a network of suppliers, with whom Vilches later arranged buys via WhatsApp messages. Once the gold was ready for pickup, he would fly to Arica, in northern Chile, where he kept a Mazda sedan expressly for trips into Peru. On at least 10 trips, beginning in the middle of 2014, Vilches says, he and his father-in-law drove across the border to the city of Tacna, a few miles inside Peru, with the door panels of their car stuffed with cash, as much as $2 million at a time.

Vilches bragged to prosecutors that he moved with ease in the criminal world. With relish, he described making a buy at a safe house in Tacna. While his father-in-law waited outside in the car, Vilches was escorted by armed men through multiple metal detectors and locked gates before arriving at a secure room that held a huge stash of gold. He suspected the house doubled as a cocaine dealing operation, he told prosecutors, but he kept his cool. He tested the gold for purity, then went back outside, packed the contraband into the door panels of the Mazda, and drove back to Chile.

Mining at a government-designated site in the indigenous San Jacinto community in the Madre de Dios region of Peru. Photographer: Tomas Munita/The New York Times/Redux

Vilches began making as many as five gold runs a month to Peru and also hired couriers, who delivered to him directly in Santiago. It added up to enough to allow him to make several successful deliveries to Fujairah using air cargo companies. Then, in August 2014, customs agents at the airport in Arica stopped a pair of his couriers with 105 lb. of gold. The paperwork and the duo’s explanations about how they’d obtained the gold didn’t add up. The gold was seized, and Vilches was looking at his first legal trouble: a tax-evasion case, which has yet to be resolved.

Vilches decided to abandon Fujairah. Fulfilling the contract would require dozens of buying trips or courier runs, and getting the gold to Dubai would involve massive logistical challenges. When the company asked about its overdue deliveries, Vilches invented excuses. But lawyers for Fujairah were convinced he was lying. They suspected he was selling to other companies on the side. Fujairah also came to the conclusion that the gold was illegal.

Almost two years later, Vilches faced his first criminal charges, for fraud and appropriating $5.2 million from Fujairah Gold. Through his lawyer, Marko Magdic, Vilches denied the charges and said the only issue was a breach of contract. Fujairah continues to press claims in court to recover the money.

As his relationship with Fujairah deteriorated, Vilches sought new buyers. He knew some of his Chilean clients were selling the gold he brought from Peru to NTR Metals in Miami. Soria, he told prosecutors, made an introduction. “I was cleared by the company’s compliance committee in more or less three weeks,” he told the FBI. Trey Gum, general counsel for Elemetal LLC, NTR’s parent company, says the company established a relationship with Vilches only after its representatives visited his companies in Chile. “The information NTR Miami received was that Mr. Vilches came from a family of established jewelers with close ties to the evangelical community in Chile,” Gum said in an emailed statement. Soria couldn’t be reached for comment. The offices of his company in Lima appear to have shut down, and its phone numbers are out of service.

Vilches told prosecutors he then went to Florida and met with two NTR executives: Renato Rodriguez, executive sales director for Latin America, and Samer Barrage, who oversees the Miami operation. They sat down together at a restaurant in Coral Gables. “They knew something was up with my gold because it was so pure. ... A few months later I expressly told them it was contraband gold,” Vilches said. He also told prosecutors that Rodriguez and Barrage coached him on falsifying customs paperwork.

None of this is true, according to Rodriguez and Barrage. Standing in the lobby of NTR’s Miami office, Rodriguez says the company trusted the documentation Vilches provided—as did, he points out, customs officials in Chile and the U.S. “All that stuff is made up,” he said. Barrage said in an email: “I want to be emphatically clear at no point did I have any knowledge whatsoever regarding his metal being sourced from illegal mining operations. There was absolutely no coaching or involvement regarding his export process or import process for that matter.”

To maximize the appearance of legitimacy, Vilches wanted to cast his gold into brick-size ingots, with a seal identifying the weight and purity. It was a challenge—he’d watched his father do it, but he had almost no idea how to manage it himself. When he plugged in an imported machine to melt the gold, it shorted out and filled his office with black smoke; he’d neglected to buy a transformer so the equipment would work with Chile’s higher-voltage electrical system. Eventually, Vilches says, he and his father-in-law taught themselves how to make the ingots by watching YouTube videos.

“NTR knows the gold is illegal. It’s cheaper than legitimate gold. That’s the business”

In December 2014, Vilches made his first delivery to NTR Metals Miami, with a suitcase full of gold bars. That was how he capped his first full year in business, during which he shipped 3,119 lb. of gold valued at $57.4 million, export records cited in the criminal investigation show. Chilean investigators later cited 10 shipments from Vilches to NTR as clearly illegal because of falsifications in customs declarations and failure to pay taxes and duties on the initial importation of the gold.

Chilean prosecutors say they have evidence NTR was aware the gold was illegal or contraband based on Vilches’s statements and his telephone, email, and text communications, all of which they’ve shared with U.S. investigators. “NTR knows the gold is illegal. It’s cheaper than legitimate gold. That’s the business,” says Tufit Bufadel, a Chilean prosecutor involved in the case.

In early 2015, Vilches told the FBI, Rodriguez and Barrage summoned him to Miami to make a bold proposal. “They asked me to find a gold supplier in Africa,” he said. According to Vilches, the NTR executives proposed that he try to arrange a 1,000-kilo-per-month smuggling operation.

Vilches was game. If he could pull it off, he’d be moving an estimated $20 million a month in dirty gold. But it was going to be complicated. “What they told me is that, because of compliance policies, they could not receive African gold,” Vilches told the FBI. “So they proposed that I export from Africa to Chile and then send it to Miami to NTR Metals.”

Vilches flew to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, where he spent almost a month viewing stashes of gold and negotiating with South African and Cameroon-based traders. He told the FBI he “maintained constant communications with Renato and Samer” about possible shipping routes. But he got scammed out of $300,000 by someone he thought was a supplier. The entire Tanzania affair unnerved him. At one point, he told the FBI, he was accosted by two carloads of armed men—probably government security forces, he thought—and held for hours in a grimy room while being interrogated about his business in Tanzania. He was relieved to escape with his life.

Rodriguez and Barrage denied suggesting Vilches go to Africa. “In fact, in 2015 he asked if we purchased from Africa,” Rodriguez wrote in an email. “I unequivocally told him no and that it was a policy of NTR not to do so.” Barrage wrote: “There was ... no encouragement to source gold from Africa.”

Despite the setbacks in Tanzania, Vilches had a good 2015. He spent his money on a $1 million home adjacent to a lake with lilies and swans. He also invested $150,000 in a fortified building in Recoleta, a Santiago neighborhood where stray dogs roam streets strewn with trash. Graffiti-covered 12-foot walls topped with barbed wire surrounded a two-story building outfitted with Level 5 bulletproof glass and armored metal doors. Steel-reinforced walls and an array of 32 security cameras protected an inner sanctum. The final touch was a pepper spray system. “Even in a bank you don’t see such high-quality protection and security measures,” says Pérez, the Chilean prosecutor.

It was here that Vilches toiled, usually alone, transforming his gold into the standard-size ingots needed to avoid raising suspicions at customs. He marked each with the precise weight and purity and added the seal of Aurum Metals LLC, a company he’d set up in Miami. It was also in the bunker that Vilches stashed cash and falsified documentation for the gold.

Vilches told prosecutors that the NTR executives advised him to make videos of the refining process to better support his claims that the gold came from legal sources. He did that, and his marketing brochures carried photos of himself grinning while pouring liquid from a flask like a high school chemistry student, except that the flask was filled with liquid gold.

NTR Metals Miami is one of the 49 offices of NTR Metals, also known as Elemetal Direct, one of eight divisions of Dallas-based Elemetal LLC. Elemetal Direct sells its gold as 99.99 percent pure bullion—and certified as coming from legal mines by industry groups. Those groups include the London Bullion Market Association, or LBMA, the industry’s self-regulating body, which counts officials from major banks and gold traders on its board. Elemetal dedicates a section of its website to certifications of quality and origin, including a copy of the LBMA’s “responsible gold certificate” from a “third-party audit of the company’s supply chain due diligence.” LBMA spokesman Aelred Connelly declined to comment about Elemetal’s certification.

Another certificate comes from the Conflict-Free Sourcing Initiative of the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition, or EICC. It’s for Elemetal’s gold smelter in Jackson, Ohio. To renew the certification each year, Elemetal hires auditors to review purchase and import records, tour the smelter, and interview employees about the source of purchased gold. The mission is to assure that no gold comes from illegal mines that give rise to prostitution, labor abuses, and environmental damage or fund illegal activities or war, especially in Latin America, says Leah Butler, director of the conflict-free smelter program at the EICC. “We know that gold from Latin America is high-risk,” says Butler. She declined to comment on Elemetal, citing EICC rules. The organization “takes allegations of wrongdoing by any smelter or refiner in its program very seriously,” she says.

Amjad Rihan, a former Ernst & Young auditor who specializes in researching commodity supply chains, says it’s easy to fool auditors. Rihan now works for Martello Risk, a London consulting firm that helps companies scour supply lines for illegal minerals. “The problem is these audits really don’t go beyond the paperwork,” he says.

These seals of approval are critical across the industry. Under U.S. and European law, corporations must ensure their suppliers aren’t buying from mines that fund conflict. So they source gold from companies that are certified as having clean supply chains. Elemetal’s certified smelter is a valuable asset that allowed the company to supply 68 Fortune 500 companies in 2015 according to a Verité analysis of corporate conflict minerals reports, which are required under the U.S. Dodd-Frank Act. Those include Alphabet, Apple, GE, GM, and HP, the latest corporate filings show.

According to Gum, Elemetal’s lawyer, NTR Metals Miami stopped doing business with Vilches on June 1, 2016, the day the fraud charge against him was filed, and “reported the matter to appropriate governmental authorities.” Elemetal also, “as a precautionary measure,” ordered NTR Metals Miami to “suspend all operations in Chile pending a review of current risks and procedures in that country,” Gum says.

Vilches’s confessions took on the air of a performance. “All you lacked was the popcorn”

On the night everything began to fall apart, when agents at the Santiago airport seized the five ingots in his carry-on, Vilches immediately called NTR, he told FBI investigators. Rodriguez and Barrage suggested, he said, that he forget about ever seeing that gold again and concentrate on getting the paperwork right the next time. NTR executives “gave me instructions to keep U.S. Customs from realizing my certificates of origin were false,” Vilches said.

It seemed to work, for quite a while. Chilean police were itching to bust him, but prosecutors ordered detectives to stand down to gather more evidence. They were reluctant to give up on the idea of snagging someone higher than Vilches. And so he both imported and exported dirty gold without interruption.

The net began to close in early 2016, when banks in Chile and Miami began filing suspicious-activity reports on Vilches’s huge cash transactions and shutting down his accounts. Then came the criminal complaint involving the Fujairah Gold contract. Finally, police arrested Vilches and seized $300,000 in cash and a small amount of gold from the bunker. Facing a multiyear jail sentence for money laundering and tax evasion, Vilches agreed to cooperate with law enforcement in both the U.S. and Chile. He also dropped out of college. Today, Vilches and NTR Metals are at the center of a sweeping criminal investigation by the U.S. Justice Department, Chile’s National Economic Prosecutor’s office, and law enforcement in Peru and Ecuador, according to Pérez, the Chilean prosecutor. Sarah Schall, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami, declined to comment, citing policy against confirming or denying the existence of an investigation.

In October 2016, FBI agents and prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami traveled to Chile to interview Vilches. After becoming convinced his information was legitimate, they told him he might get immunity in the U.S. from prosecution in exchange for his sworn testimony, people with knowledge of the probe say. As Vilches spent hour after hour in interrogation, FBI agents and Chilean detectives were both fascinated and entertained. Upwards of 15 law enforcement professionals crowded into a meeting room at Santiago 1, a sprawling prison complex, and Vilches fed off the attention. He laughed and seemed to shrug off the seriousness of his situation. His confessions took on the air of a performance, according to one of the investigators present. “All you lacked was the popcorn,” he says with a laugh. FBI agent Lourdes McLoughlin, the assistant legal attaché at the U.S. embassy in Santiago, declined to comment, citing a policy of not commenting on active investigations.

In December the U.S. Attorney’s Office and FBI brought Vilches to Miami, where he told a federal grand jury that he was coached by NTR Metals Miami on how to set up his corporate structure in the U.S. to handle smuggled gold and then launder the proceeds, people familiar with the U.S. probe say. Elemetal and NTR Metals Miami didn’t respond to questions about an investigation.

Vilches lived large only briefly. He’s traded down to an apartment along Gran Avenida, a thoroughfare in a tough Santiago neighborhood. Because of his cooperation, he’s unlikely to face additional jail time for smuggling. He still faces multiple criminal charges, including tax evasion.

Chilean export regulations have been beefed up in the wake of the Vilches case. One gold dealer describes the new export process as similar to “being told to stand up against the wall and put your hands up.” Customs officials from Ecuador, Bolivia, and Peru have visited Chile to exchange information and compare notes. Pérez approves, but he has no illusions. If Vilches, without any particular advantages except his boldness, could get this far in the illegal gold trade, who else could? “I think there are 100 Vilcheses across Latin America,” he says. “It’s easier than it looks.”

—With assistance from Ben Bartenstein

ALTHOUGH he is best known for developing a way to mass-produce steel, Henry Bessemer was a prolific British inventor. In the 1850s in Sheffield his converters blasted air through molten iron to burn away impurities, making steel the material of the industrial revolution. But Bessemer knew he could do better, and in 1865 he filed a patent to cast strips of steel directly, rather than as large ingots which then had to be expensively reheated and shaped by giant rolling machines.

Bessemer’s idea was to pour molten steel in between two counter-rotating water-cooled rollers which, like a mangle, would squeeze the metal into a sheet. It was an elegant idea that, by dint of having fewer steps, would save time and money. Yet it was tricky to pull off. Efforts to commercialise the process were abandoned.

Until now. Advances in production technology and materials science, particularly for new types of high-tech steel, mean that Bessemer’s “twin-roll” idea is being taken up successfully. An alternative system that casts liquid steel directly onto a single horizontally moving belt is also being tried. Both techniques could cut energy consumption—one of the biggest costs in steelmaking—by around 80%. Other savings in operating and capital costs are also possible. If these new processes prove themselves, steelmaking could once again be transformed.

On a roll

Steelmakers are cautious about new technologies. It was not until the 1960s that the industry ventured from casting ingots to building giant integrated plants for the continuous casting of steel. This involves pouring molten steel through a bottomless mould which, being cooled by water, partially solidifies it. The steel is then drawn down through a series of rolls to form sheet steel or other shapes required by factories and construction companies. Most of the 1.6bn tonnes of steel produced annually worldwide is now made this way.

Continuous casting, however, still takes a lot of rolling to reduce slabs cast 80-120mm thick to the 1-2mm required by many producers, such as carmakers. Casting any thinner causes quality problems and flaws in the steel’s microstructure. One reason for that is the bottomless mould has to be oscillated to ensure molten steel does not stick to its sides. The new techniques of twin-roll and single belt-casting are, in effect, “moving moulds”—the rollers and the belt move with the steel as it cools and solidifies. This allows direct casting to a thickness of just a few millimetres, requiring only minimal rolling thereafter.

The new techniques are particularly good for making higher-value, specialist steels, says Claire Davis, a steel expert with the Warwick Manufacturing Group at the University of Warwick in Britain. Ms Davis and her team are developing new high-tech steels especially for belt casting, including advanced low-density steels that are stronger, lighter and more flexible than conventional steel.

A twin-roll process, much as Bessemer conceived, is already employed by Nucor, a giant American steelmaker. Called Castrip, it is producing steel in two of its plants. A big advantage of twin-roll and belt-casting is compactness. Nucor reckons a Castrip plant needs only 20 hectares (50 acres) and provides a good investment return from the production of only 500,000 tonnes of steel a year. A conventional steel plant, by comparison, may sprawl over 2,000 hectares and need to produce some 4m tonnes a year to turn a profit.

Other firms are licensing Castrip as well. Shagang, a large Chinese steelmaker, is replacing a less energy-efficient plant with the new technology. The numbers look compelling enough to encourage a startup, too: Albion Steel is talking to investors about building a £300m ($370m) Castrip plant in Britain. The plant would be “fed” by a low-cost mini-mill that melts scrap and produces steel for galvanising, mostly for the construction industry, says Tony Pedder, one of Albion’s founders. Mr Pedder is the chairman of Sheffield Forgemasters, an engineering company, and a former boss of British Steel (which later became Corus). Britain has a surplus of scrap but imports galvanised steel. The plant would employ only about 250 people; traditional integrated operations need a thousand or so. “We believe in the technology,” says Mr Pedder. “In our view it is past the point of being experimental.”

Salzgitter, a German steelmaker, opened the first commercial single belt-caster at Peine, near Hanover, in 2012. It began by making construction steel but has progressed to more specialist steels. The trick is to keep the water-cooled belt perfectly flat, says Roderick Guthrie of McGill University in Canada, one of the pioneers of the technology. Salzgitter uses a vacuum under the belt to do that, whereas Mr Guthrie employs powerful magnets to the same effect on a pilot plant at the university. His research group is working with a number of companies, including a big carmaker. Whereas twin-roll casting is constrained by practical limitations, such as the size of the rollers, horizontal single belt-casting is less so, argues Mr Guthrie.

The techniques may end up being complementary. Their spatial efficiency and low cost would also allow production to be located closer to customers. Mr Guthrie thinks it is not inconceivable for such a plant to be integrated within a car factory. “If we can make the quality as good as the big slab-casting plants, it would change the face of the steel industry,” he says. New technologies might just blast a dose of fresh air through an old industry, much as Bessemer’s converter did 150 years ago.

PENDLETON, Ore. The ArcticShark unmanned aircraft system (UAS), designed to collect sophisticated atmospheric data in the Arctic starting in 2018, is undergoing flight testing at the newly developed Pendleton UAS Range (PUR) in Pendleton, Oregon.

Flight testing and pilot training of the ArcticShark at PUR is expected to take place almost daily through March 17. The UAS is scheduled to begin field research in Alaska starting in 2018. The ArcticShark is owned by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and managed by the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility, a DOE national scientific user facility. With a wingspan of 22 feet and a gross takeoff weight of 625 pounds, the ArcticShark UAS can fly up to 15,000 feet and has a maximum speed of 75 miles per hour.

ArcticShark will eventually be equipped with more than a dozen different instruments designed to record the most sophisticated measurements ever gathered about Earth’s atmosphere and help scientists better understand one of the most sensitive regions of the planet, officials say.

Officials at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in Richland, Wash., ArgenTech Solutions (AgTS), PUR, and the University of Alaska, Fairbanks collaborated to obtain Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) flight approvals and to build the concept of operations for ArcticShark.

“We are paving the way for the evolving integration of Unmanned Aircraft Systems into the National Airspace System (NAS) and we’re pleased to be assisting in those test objectives,” says Jen Armstrong, vice president AgTS Commercial Services.

“The City of Pendleton and the State of Oregon have invested a tremendous amount of time and resources toward developing a premier UAS test range in eastern Oregon,” adds Steve Chrisman, economic development director and airport manager for the city of Pendleton. “PNNL was the first organization to approach us about using the range, so it’s nice to see everyone’s hard work come to fruition. This is really just the beginning of a new age in aviation.” “As Oregon’s UAS industry facilitator, we’re pleased that the DOE has selected our Pendleton range to conduct testing on a UAS that will help scientists around the world to understand our planet more fully,” explains Earl Bowerman, executive director of SOAR. “One of the most exciting aspects of UAS research and development is its potential to help solve our most critical global challenges.”

Oregon’s ranges operate under the Pan-Pacific UAS Test Range Complex (PPUTRC), which is administered by the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

Most organizations would be happy to last for centuries, as the Venetian Republic did. From 697 to 1797 AD, Venice’s technological acumen, geographic position, and unconventionality were interlocking advantages that allowed the Most Serene Republic to flourish. But when change comes suddenly, it can turn strengths into weaknesses and sweep away even thousand-year success stories.

Venice’s military technology and the city’s pivotal location on the main trade routes of the time gave Venice several strong, mutually reinforcing advantages.

The Arsenal, an advanced naval munitions factory that anticipated by several centuries the production-line method of manufacture, was the beating heart of the Venetian naval industry. From the thirteenth century on, the Arsenal nurtured creativity and spurred innovation and entrepreneurship in the construction of its galleys.

The city’s geographic location helped it to defend itself from both land- and sea-based invaders. This location, consisting of a series of islands in a marshy lagoon, also pushed it to develop a (then unusual) trading and moneylending economy, since there was little land to support agriculture. And its position at the top of the Adriatic Sea allowed it to become a vital trading hub, connecting the East with the West via the Mediterranean.

If, as Michael Porter wrote, competitive advantage stems from how “activities fit and reinforce one another….creating a chain that is as strong as its strongest link,” then strategic fit is something that the Venetian Republic had in spades.

But, like a lot of successful entities, Venice reached a point where it focused more on exploitation than exploration: Venetian traders followed existing paths to success. Entrepreneurs chose not to move away from traditional pathways. Established practices and preferences became more popular than exploration and speculation. Merchants and traders played the game of incremental innovation by focusing on efficiency and optimization. Determined to grow their own fortunes rapidly, they pressed their feet to the accelerator rather than charting new courses.

But toward the end of the 16th century the world was changing in ways that would make Venice less relevant. The Arsenal’s focus on galley ships made sense when the Mediterranean was the most important trading waterway. Alessandro Barbero, professor of medieval history at the University of Eastern Piedmont, in Italy, notes that the galley remained for a long time the favorite vessel of Venetian navigators. But the invention of seafaring galleons allowed countries bordering the Atlantic to set up new trade routes that did not flow through the Adriatic.

This age of exploration triggered the beginning of Venice’s decline. One huge advance in technology — ships that could survive at sea for months, even years — weakened Venice’s competitive advantage and the strategic fit of its competencies.

The rise of the seafaring galleon meant Venice was suddenly disadvantaged by its location at the northern extremity of the Adriatic Sea. Moreover, its Arsenal was no longer at the cutting edge of naval technology. Venice’s economic importance had sharply contracted by the time Napoleon invaded, bringing the Venetian Empire to an official end.

What’s the lesson for entrepreneurs and innovators today? The stronger the assumption that the future will function as today does, the greater the gravitational force of the status quo. Organizations set in their ways slow down and never strive for new horizons. They are doomed to wither.

If you don’t want to be caught by surprise, you have to recognize that the future will be different from the past. The future is unfathomable, ambiguous, and open to every option. One major move by a competitor, or one new technology, is sometimes all it takes to end an empire. If your current business is like a carefully tended garden, with neat beds and high walls, that’s not enough. The next opportunity (or threat) may lie outside those walls, at the messy intersection of sectors and markets.

Entrepreneurs and innovators resist “success as usual” syndrome, exploring emerging technologies and new business models. They try to keep the big picture in mind and are wary of being too efficient and too optimized. This perspective helps them promote unconventional ways of thinking, solving problems, and challenging the status quo. They know the goal is not to chase a fixed horizon but to understand when and how the horizon moves as they approach it.

Piero Formica is the founder of the International Entrepreneurship Academy and a Senior Research Fellow at the Innovation Value Institute. He is author of The Role of Creative Ignorance: Portraits of Path Finders and Path Creators and Grand Transformation Towards an Entrepreneurial Economy: Exploring the Void. He’s the editor of Entrepreneurial Renaissance: Cities Striving Towards an Era of Rebirth and Revival.

The end of the year has been hectic, and I would forgive you if you missed a Bill Gertz article from earlier this month about preparations for an anti-satellite/missile defense test in China at the Korla Missile Test Base. I almost missed the story, but I’m especially glad that I didn’t. As we finally end 2016, it gives me the opportunity to talk about one of the highlights of the year for me: working with imagery from small satellites, in particular imagery from our friends at Planet Labs.

The December 9th article, based on information from unnamed Pentagon officials, notes that

test preparations for the Dong Neng-3 anti-satellite missile were detected at a military facility in central China.

Satellite imagery should be able to confirm such details. I don’t have it in my budget at the moment to buy a high-resolution satellite image, but as it turns out I don’t need to buy high-resolution imagery for this purpose. Comparing moderate resolution images for changes can sufficiently show preparations for a test.

The Gertz article specifies that preparations were observed at a military facility in central China. This could mean the Korla facility, which as I’ve written about before is the main test facility associated with the development of the DN-3 hit-to-kill vehicle. Perhaps I’m splitting hairs, but I don’t really consider Korla to be central China. However, we know from past tests that the test targets come from a launch facility near Jiuquan (41.280468°, 100.304501°), which seems much more like central China to me.

The article is ambiguous in its phrasing. In this case I checked the Planet catalogue for imagery of both Korla and Jiuquan. The imagery at Korla is limited at the moment for the time frame I’m interested in. But there is plenty of imagery at Jiuquan in early December. (The most amazing thing about small satellites: Planet plans to have daily revisit rates for most of the globe, at which point this discussion will become rather antiquated).

The more frequent imagery from Planet does confirm movement at the Jiuquan facility on and around December 9th.

Gif from Planet Labs showing movement on the pad at the Jiuquan missile facility on and around 9 December 2016. Can you spot the change? Images from 1 December 2016, 9 December 2016, and 17 December 2016. Images ©2016 Planet Labs, Inc.

An item is visible in the bottom left corner of a Jiuquan launchpad on 9 December 2016. Image ©2016 Planet Labs, Inc.

Although these 2-4 meter images are not quite good enough to observe vehicle details, they do allow one to see that there was movement on a launchpad that could be used for an interceptor test at Korla. Comparing the Planet imagery to even one high-resolution image increases confidence in this assessment. A 2014 image of a TEL on the same Jiuquan pad is in roughly the same location as the object visible in the Planet image from 9 December.

The same launchpad in October 2014. Note the TEL clearly visible in the bottom left corner of the launchpad. Image from GoogleEarth.

Of course we know now that a test did not occur in the window specified by NOTAMs, which could be for a variety of reasons, such as inclement or rapidly deteriorating weather. But whether the test occurred or not is irrelevant for my aim in this case, which is to confirm the detail about preparations in Gertz’s story. Planet imagery of the Jiuquan facility indicates that there was activity on the launchpad, possibly in the form of preparing a missile launcher for a test. Frequent imagery, even at a moderate resolution, is incredibly useful for tracking missile test preparations.

Here’s to even more imagery from small satellites in 2017!

___

ben reuter December 28, 2016 at 6:59 am

BTW: the TEL you spotted is DF-16

North Korea has made considerable progress this year on weapons technology, including testing a submarine-launched missile for the first time, but it's still not clear if the isolated nation has developed a nuclear warhead.

It also does not yet have a fleet of submarines that can launch the newly developed missile.

Nevertheless, concerns about the threat posed by North Korea have spiraled since it conducted its fourth nuclear explosion in January and followed it up with a series of missile tests despite severe United Nations sanctions.

Also, three major factories known to produce machine parts for North Korea's sanctioned nuclear and missile programs have been modernized or expanded, according to analysis of recent satellite imagery seen by Reuters, a further sign of its commitment of scarce resources to weapons.

"North Korea has dramatically increased the pace of missile testing and invested heavily in modernizing its factories that produce them, something we can see in satellite images," said Jeffrey Lewis of the California-based Middlebury Institute of International Studies.

"These investments have paid off with the recent test of a solid-fueled submarine-launched missile, but North Korea has not yet completed development of a submarine to carry that missile."

In April, a South Korean official said the North had accomplished miniaturization of a nuclear warhead to mount on a missile, although there was no direct evidence it had done so. The United States has said the North's claim that it had miniaturized a warhead had to be taken as a credible threat.

"I think North Korea is capable of miniaturizing nuclear bombs," said Yang Uk, a senior research fellow at the Korea Defence and Security Forum and a policy adviser to the South Korean navy. "But they don't have any standardized warhead yet to put on missiles. They keep gathering data through nuclear tests and working to standardize a warhead."

Experts have predicted that the delivery vehicle for the North's first nuclear warhead would be the medium-range Rodong missile, which can fire a 1 tonne (1,100 lb) warhead up to 2,000 km (1,250 miles).

Despite threats to strike the mainland United States, the North is seen as several years away from building an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that can carry a nuclear warhead.

EXPANDED PRODUCTION

In the past year, North Korea has boasted of numerous weapons breakthroughs in unprecedented detail.

Although some of it was bluster, international experts have concluded North Korea's missiles have flown higher and for longer than previously, indicating progress in the country's banned missile program.

In June, after repeated failures, it successfully launched an intermediate-range missile, which can fly up to 3,500 km (2,100 miles).

Analysis of satellite images shows that the North has recently expanded factories known to contribute to its nuclear and missile programs.

An Aug 22 image of a sprawling plant in a rural area 60 km (37 miles) north of Pyongyang appears to show several new structures, extensive refurbishment of existing buildings and a new entrance to a probable underground facility, according to data from satellite imagery provider Planet that was analyzed by Lewis.

The January 18 General Machine Plant has long been used to produce engines for tanks, missiles and other military vessels, according to experts.

"This represents an enormous investment in North Korea's missile production infrastructure, something that is consistent with the propaganda offensive we have seen and the spike in missile testing," said Lewis.

The Kanggye General Tractor Plant, believed by arms control experts to assemble North Koreans munitions, was also upgraded in the last year, according to imagery analyzed by Lewis.

The plant is the country's "main weapons production base," a defector who worked in North Korea's secretive munitions industry told South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper in 2010.

For Pyongyang, however, building a new submarine fleet seems to be a top priority.

A new construction hall has come up at North Korea's Sinpo submarine base on the east coast, according to images collected by Planet.

An image from Aug 10 shows a new structure being built beside a refurbished pier within the base, although it was not clear if the new hall would house a new class of submarine.

Perfecting submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) technology and having a fleet of submarines that could deploy the weapons would raise North Korea's threat to Japan and U.S. interests in the Pacific to a new level, given the ability of submarines to escape a land attack and evade missile defense shields.

Leader Kim Jong Un proclaimed the SLBM test the country's "greatest success" and said North Korea was at the "front-rank of nuclear powers".

Moon Keun-sik, a retired South Korean submarine captain and squadron leader, said North Korea's conventional diesel-powered submarines were a persistent threat despite their age but its SLBM-capable craft could be a game-changer.

"North Korea will be or is already in the process of building a newer, bigger submarine that may happen as early as next year," he said.

The U.S. knew Hussein was launching some of the worst chemical attacks in history -- and still gave him a hand.

By Shane Harris and Matthew M. Aid

The U.S. government may be considering military action in response to chemical strikes near Damascus. But a generation ago, America’s military and intelligence communities knew about and did nothing to stop a series of nerve gas attacks far more devastating than anything Syria has seen, Foreign Policy has learned.

In 1988, during the waning days of Iraq’s war with Iran, the  United States learned through satellite imagery that Iran was about to  gain a major strategic advantage by exploiting a hole in Iraqi defenses. U.S. intelligence officials conveyed the location of the Iranian troops to Iraq, fully aware that Hussein’s military  would attack with chemical weapons, including sarin, a lethal nerve  agent.

The intelligence included imagery and maps about Iranian troop   movements, as well as the locations of Iranian logistics facilities and details about Iranian air defenses. The Iraqis used mustard gas and sarin prior to four major offensives in early 1988 that relied on U.S. satellite imagery, maps, and other intelligence. These attacks helped to tilt the war in Iraq’s favor and bring Iran to the negotiating table, and they ensured that the Reagan administration’s long-standing policy of securing an Iraqi victory would succeed. But they were also the last in a series of chemical strikes stretching back several years that the Reagan administration knew about and didn’t disclose.

U.S. officials have long denied acquiescing to Iraqi chemical attacks, insisting that Hussein’s government never announced he was going to use the weapons. But retired Air Force Col. Rick Francona, who was a military attaché in Baghdad during the 1988 strikes, paints a different picture.

"The Iraqis never told us that they intended to use nerve gas. They didn’t have to. We already knew," he told Foreign Policy.

According to recently declassified CIA documents and interviews with former intelligence officials like Francona, the U.S. had firm evidence of Iraqi chemical attacks beginning in 1983. At the time, Iran was publicly alleging that illegal chemical attacks were carried out on its forces, and was building a case to present to the United Nations. But it lacked the evidence implicating Iraq, much of which was contained in top secret reports and memoranda sent to the most senior intelligence officials in the U.S. government. The CIA declined to comment for this story.

In contrast to today’s wrenching debate over whether the United States should intervene to stop alleged chemical weapons attacks by the Syrian government, the United States applied a cold calculus three decades ago to Hussein’s widespread use of chemical weapons against his enemies and his own people. The Reagan administration decided that it was better to let the attacks continue if they might turn the tide of the war. And even if they were discovered, the CIA wagered that international outrage and condemnation would be muted.

In the documents, the CIA said that Iran might not discover persuasive evidence of the weapons’ use — even though the agency possessed it. Also, the agency noted that the Soviet Union had previously used chemical agents in Afghanistan and suffered few repercussions.

It has been previously reported that the United States provided tactical intelligence to Iraq at the same time that officials suspected Hussein would use chemical weapons. But the CIA documents, which sat almost entirely unnoticed in a trove of declassified material at the National Archives in College Park, Md., combined with exclusive interviews with former intelligence officials, reveal new details about the depth of the United States’ knowledge of how and when Iraq employed the deadly agents. They show that senior U.S. officials were being regularly informed about the scale of the nerve gas attacks. They are tantamount to an official American admission of complicity in some of the most gruesome chemical weapons attacks ever launched.

Top CIA officials, including the Director of Central Intelligence William J. Casey, a close friend of President Ronald Reagan, were told about the location of Iraqi chemical weapons assembly plants; that Iraq was desperately trying to make enough mustard agent to keep up with frontline demand from its forces; that Iraq was about to buy equipment from Italy to help speed up production of chemical-packed artillery rounds and bombs; and that Iraq could also use nerve agents on Iranian troops and possibly civilians.

Officials were also warned that Iran might launch retaliatory attacks against U.S. interests in the Middle East, including terrorist strikes, if it believed the United States was complicit in Iraq’s chemical warfare campaign.

"As Iraqi attacks continue and intensify the chances increase that Iranian forces will acquire a shell containing mustard agent with Iraqi markings," the CIA reported in a top secret document in November 1983. "Tehran would take such evidence to the U.N. and charge U.S. complicity in violating international law."

At the time, the military attaché’s office was following Iraqi preparations for the offensive using satellite reconnaissance imagery, Francona told Foreign Policy. According to a former CIA official, the images showed Iraqi movements of chemical materials to artillery batteries opposite Iranian positions prior to each offensive.  

Francona, an experienced Middle East hand and Arabic linguist who served in the National Security Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency, said he first became aware of Iraq’s use of chemical weapons against Iran in 1984, while serving as air attaché in Amman, Jordan. The information he saw clearly showed that the Iraqis had used Tabun nerve agent (also known as "GA") against Iranian forces in southern Iraq.

The declassified CIA documents show that Casey and other top officials were repeatedly informed about Iraq’s chemical attacks and its plans for launching more. "If the Iraqis produce or acquire large new supplies of mustard agent, they almost certainly would use it against Iranian troops and towns near the border," the CIA said in a top secret document.

But it was the express policy of Reagan to ensure an Iraqi victory in the war, whatever the cost.

The CIA noted in one document that the use of nerve agent "could have a significant impact on Iran’s human wave tactics, forcing Iran to give up that strategy." Those tactics, which involved Iranian forces swarming against conventionally armed Iraqi positions, had proved decisive in some battles. In March 1984, the CIA reported that Iraq had "begun using nerve agents on the Al Basrah front and likely will be able to employ it in militarily significant quantities by late this fall."

The use of chemical weapons in war is banned under the Geneva Protocol of 1925, which states that parties "will exert every effort to induce other States to accede to the" agreement. Iraq never ratified the protocol; the United States did in 1975. The Chemical Weapons Convention, which bans the production and use of such arms, wasn’t passed until 1997, years after the incidents in question.

The initial wave of Iraqi attacks, in 1983, used mustard agent. While generally not fatal, mustard causes severe blistering of the skin and mucus membranes, which can lead to potentially fatal infections, and can cause blindness and upper respiratory disease, while increasing the risk of cancer. The United States wasn’t yet providing battlefield intelligence to Iraq when mustard was used. But it also did nothing to assist Iran in its attempts to bring proof of illegal Iraqi chemical attacks to light. Nor did the administration inform the United Nations. The CIA determined that Iran had the capability to bomb the weapons assembly facilities, if only it could find them. The CIA believed it knew the locations.

Hard evidence of the Iraqi chemical attacks came to light in 1984. But that did little to deter Hussein from using the lethal agents, including in strikes against his own people. For as much as the CIA knew about Hussein’s use of chemical weapons, officials resisted providing Iraq with intelligence throughout much of the war. The Defense Department had proposed an intelligence-sharing program with the Iraqis in 1986. But according to Francona, it was nixed because the CIA and the State Department viewed Saddam Hussein as "anathema" and his officials as "thugs."

The situation changed in 1987. CIA reconnaissance satellites picked up clear indications that the Iranians were concentrating large numbers of troops and equipment east of the city of Basrah, according to Francona, who was then serving with the Defense Intelligence Agency. What concerned DIA analysts the most was that the satellite imagery showed that the Iranians had discovered a gaping hole in the Iraqi lines southeast of Basrah. The seam had opened up at the junction between the Iraqi III Corps, deployed east of the city, and the Iraqi VII Corps, which was deployed to the southeast of the city in and around the hotly contested Fao Peninsula.

The satellites detected Iranian engineering and bridging units being secretly moved to deployment areas opposite the gap in the Iraqi lines, indicating that this was going to be where the main force of the annual Iranian spring offensive was going to fall, Francona said.

In late 1987, the DIA analysts in Francona’s shop in Washington wrote a Top Secret Codeword report partially entitled "At The Gates of Basrah," warning that the Iranian 1988 spring offensive was going to be bigger than all previous spring offensives, and this offensive stood a very good chance of breaking through the Iraqi lines and capturing Basrah. The report warned that if Basrah fell, the Iraqi military would collapse and Iran would win the war.

President Reagan read the report and, according to Francona, wrote a note in the margin addressed to Secretary of Defense Frank C. Carlucci: "An Iranian victory is unacceptable."

Subsequently, a decision was made at the top level of the U.S. government (almost certainly requiring the approval of the National Security Council and the CIA). The DIA was authorized to give the Iraqi intelligence services as much detailed information as was available about the deployments and movements of all Iranian combat units. That included satellite imagery and perhaps some sanitized electronic intelligence. There was a particular focus on the area east of the city of Basrah where the DIA was convinced the next big Iranian offensive would come. The agency also provided data on the locations of key Iranian logistics facilities, and the strength and capabilities of the Iranian air force and air defense system. Francona described much of the information as "targeting packages" suitable for use by the Iraqi air force to destroy these targets.

The sarin attacks then followed.

The nerve agent causes dizziness, respiratory distress, and muscle convulsions, and can lead to death. CIA analysts could not precisely determine the Iranian casualty figures because they lacked access to Iranian officials and documents. But the agency gauged the number of dead as somewhere between "hundreds" and "thousands" in each of the four cases where chemical weapons were used prior to a military offensive. According to the CIA, two-thirds of all chemical weapons ever used by Iraq during its war with Iran were fired or dropped in the last 18 months of the war.

By 1988, U.S. intelligence was flowing freely to Hussein’s military. That March, Iraq launched a nerve gas attack on the Kurdish village of Halabja in northern Iraq.

A month later, the Iraqis used aerial bombs and artillery shells filled with sarin against Iranian troop concentrations on the Fao Peninsula southeast of Basrah, helping the Iraqi forces win a major victory and recapture the entire peninsula. The success of the Fao Peninsula offensive also prevented the Iranians from launching their much-anticipated offensive to capture Basrah. According to Francona, Washington was very pleased with the result because the Iranians never got a chance to launch their offensive.

The level of insight into Iraq’s chemical weapons program stands in marked contrast to the flawed assessments, provided by the CIA and other intelligence agencies about Iraq’s program prior to the United States’ invasion in 2003. Back then, American intelligence had better access to the region and could send officials out to assess the damage.

Francona visited the Fao Peninsula shortly after it had been captured by the Iraqis. He found the battlefield littered with hundreds of used injectors once filled with atropine, the drug commonly used to treat sarin’s lethal effects. Francona scooped up a few of the injectors and brought them back to Baghdad — proof that the Iraqis had used sarin on the Fao Peninsula.

In the ensuing months, Francona reported, the Iraqis used sarin in massive quantities three more times in conjunction with massed artillery fire and smoke to disguise the use of nerve agents. Each offensive was hugely successful, in large part because of the increasingly sophisticated use of mass quantities of nerve agents. The last of these attacks, called the Blessed Ramadan Offensive, was launched by the Iraqis in April 1988 and involved the largest use of sarin nerve agent employed by the Iraqis to date. For a quarter-century, no chemical attack came close to the scale of Saddam’s unconventional assaults. Until, perhaps, the strikes last week outside of Damascus.