MILNET: MILNET Opinion

The mainstream media, as predicted, having run out of things to say about the Afghanistan war, has now turned to internal U.S. debates in liberal wastelands, sites that used to be known for higher education in the U.S. Parading new experts on the Middle East, India, Pakistan, and the Islamic Extremists, we are hearing the expected whine of "why are we doing this? Why can't our young men come home? Why haven't we caught Bin Laden? Are the Marines 'Omar Huntin'? With all that high tech we paid for, why are they such failures?" Little attention is being paid to events that don't excite the liberal press while it focuses, still, on injured or maimed taliban in Afghanistan. What aren't you hearing about? Here's one item that not one television or radio station bothered to report in my part of America...despite several leads and details written up in Janes Defense Weekly.

Iran and China Quietly Beefing Up Iranian Defenses

While we all hope that a more modern, less extreme Islamic leadership can hold out and finally gain control in Iran, the military continues to ignore edicts against modernizing society and buys new weapons systems. Including, alarmingly, several upgrades to their radar systems. Focusing their attention East toward Afghanistan, India and Pakistan, Iran is putting together an extremely modern and clever surveillance system.

The new upgrades not only allow for more precise tracking and detection, they feature the ability to transmit from one radar station and receive from another. In other words, radar pulses are sent from one transmitting antenna, and a data link with the receiving antenna many miles away allows the receiver to "hear" the radar pulses and detect anomalies. So what's the big deal?

Stealth. That's the multi-million dollar answer. The split receiver/transmitter idea is one of the theories that just might prove to effectively counter stealth technology. And that just so happens to appear to be one of the benefits of Iran's new radar system.

Wait a minute, How's New Radar Important to Stealth?

Stealth technology plays the trickster with radar. The most obvious means to defeat radar or at least minimize its ability to see an aircraft, vessel, or vehicle, is the use of Radar Absorbing Material. The SR-71 and U-2 were probably the first aircraft to experiment with the stuff. The F-117 Nighthawk and probably the F-22 Rapier are coated with this material. The B-2 certainly is and recent upgrades to the B-1B might have also applied a little newer technology RAM coating to cut down on its already relatively small (for its size) radar signature.

The stealth designer's job is to make the stealthy aircraft, vehicle or vessel appear smaller than a large bird, and thus hidden in the noise on the radar screen. Indistinguishable from ground clutter that limits radar's effectiveness or simply just amplifier noise, the stealth aircraft remains invisible because the radar operator tunes the setup so birds are not seen, and anything bigger is.

There are several ways to reduce radar signature -- we mentioned one already, RAM. But that leads to another stealth factor - radar reflections. You can't absorb all the energy, so next the stealth designer tries to reflect radar away so that it does not return to the radar site. The reason is in how usually radar works. It sends out a pulse of energy, the energy bounces off the target, and then some portion is reflected back to a receiver at the transmitting site. This receiver uses doppler shift to figure out speed of the target and multiple pulses allow the radar to project a heading. With speed, heading and of course bearing attained by sweeping the sky to see from what direction the pulses are returning, the radar site can determine everything needed to vector interceptors in for the kill.

So another technique in the stealth designer's bag of tricks is to reduce the number of reflecting edges -- go real smooth so radar pulses aren't reflected directly back to the transmitting station. Typically the designer opts for a subterfuge of sorts. Instead of bouncing back signals, to a receiver at the transmitting station, stealthy aircraft might simply deflect the signal off at an angle which doesn't ever reach the radar station who originally transmitted the signal. Mission accomplished by the stealth designer.

Overcoming Stealth

Unfortunately one way to overcome some of the stealth's capabilities, while not always 100% effective, is to position a radar station along the probable reflection's various paths and listen for the transmitter's reflected pulse. There are some definite angles that make poor old stealth a lot less stealthy. Or so the theory goes.

And that might be just what Iran is intending to do. With U.S. bases now setting up operations in Afghanistan, the thinking in Tehran might be, "if we are next, we want to know when the stealth aircraft are coming." Sensitive to smaller objects also helps the new Iranian radar detect cruise missiles at a far greater range, thus allowing more time to set up defenses and evacuate high ranking officials from likely targets. The new radar not so coincidentally is pointing East! Not at arch rival Iraq, but East at Afghanistan and the U.S. troops suddenly kicking back looking for something new to do. Imagine that!

Strategic Threats

While the new radar is not foolproof, and presents only a small danger to stealth, it does, for the first time, give the U.S. a another excellent reason to focus their ire on Iran for strategic reasons.

Clearly Sunni Muslims in Iran are not all that friendly with many of the other Islamic extremists suddenly looking for new homes. But Iran's position in the annals of NBC threats has already placed it high on the U.S. target list (and that of MILNET we might add) of "where next" to go. Adding a new, anti-stealth radar, and that radar also reducing the effectiveness of cruise missiles to fly undetected or unhindered on their way to targets, suddenly inches Iran up another notch on the probable list of next targets.

So while preparing for a likely attempt from the Weset, once again Iran is helping its worst nightmare come true. Tehran couldn't be asking for more attention than waving a red flag at a bull. Let's tick the reasons off on one hand:

Known NBC weapons manufacturer and user -- with possible links to anthrax in U.S. Postal Service
Home to some pretty nasty terrorists -- terrorists who have already done some dirty deeds to the U.S.
Rebuilding strategic assets like radars, SAMs, and other new technologies.
One of the "hang 'em in public" Islamic extremist crowds, second only to Taliban for cruelty and retro treatment of woman and prisoners.
One of the countries where revelers were seen celebrating the attack on the Twin Towers AND Khobar Towers in Riyadh.
And of course there's that nasty business with the U.S. embassy and yellow ribbons for U.S. held hostages -- a year of waiting for their return is pretty indelibly written in the American psyche.

Well no one said terrorists are are smart in every department. Look at it this way, OBL thumbed his nose at the lazy, weak Americans thinking he could kill a couple thousand and make himself a big hero. Now that he's trying to find a cave that the U.S. hasn't turned into a pile of ash, he might of learned something. Give Tehran some credit -- Iran hasn't had their turn in the crucible yet.

A betting man might look at the possibilities for the next U.S. target and consider that Iran has just tilted one of the dice in Tehran's favor to receive their share of Daisy Cutters. There are probably plenty left in inventory. No problem.

milnet@milnet.com