Containing Missile Proliferation: Strategic Technology, Security Regimes, and International Cooperation in Arms Control

4. Argentina, Brazil, South Africa

Argentina, Brazil, South Africa: Curbed Missile Programs in the Southern Hemisphere In July 1989 and November 1990, South Africa fired two-stage rockets from Overberg at Africa's southernmost tip toward Prince Edward Islands 1A50 km to the southeast. These rocket tests were part of a dual missile and space program that involved over a thousand personnel, but was dismantled before the country's transition to majority rule in 1994. Nelson Mandela's government took South Africa into the MTCR in 1995. That year, soon after President Fernando Cardoso's visit to Washington, Brazil also joined the MTCR. Brazil had first tested a one ton Sonda-I rocket in I964. Three decades later, in 1997 and I999, it launched the more powerful 49 ton VLS rockets from the Alcantara equatorial station, inspiring commentators to declare: "Brazil races into space."I Brazil's political and technical elites aspired to use satellites for surveying the Amazon, patrolling Brazil's land borders and Atlantic coasts, monitoring natural resources, and forecasting agricultural harvests and the weather. Brazil's satellite launcher also gave it a medium-range missile capability, but Brazil renounced its missile ambitions when it entered the MTCR in 1995, and when it signed a nuclear safeguards agreement with Argentina in 1991. Buenos Aires had equally ambitious rocket aspirations. Its military regime had initiated the Condor-1 tactical missile program in 1977; its air force pressed ahead with a more powerful Condor-2 missile with little government oversight. When President Carlos Menem's administration finally restrained the project in the early I990s, radical changes were necessary to assert civilian authority and curtail the program. One or more of four factors-the MTCR'S technology embargoes, a decrease in security threats, external political-economic pressure, and domestic politicscurbed missile activities in Argentina, Brazil, and South Africa. The MTCR'S technology barriers considerably slowed and raised the costs of indigenous 74 ARGENTIN A, BRAZIL, SOUTH AFRICA 75 missile development. Simultaneously, decreased regional tensions reduced the security-related demand for missiles, while decreased prospects in the missileexport market or satellite-launch industry reduced the economic demand for those systems. In this situation ofhigher costs and a lower demand, international pressure (which was more effective because domestic economic liberalization required integration with international markets) attained the cessation of these missile programs. ARGENTINA The Rise and Fall ofthe Condor Argentine military officers established a Condor-I missile plan in 1977, but the project gained momentum only in the 1980s. The Condor-I carried a 450 kg payload to 120 km and was derived from Argentina's Alcaran sounding rocket. Argentina's two-stage Condor-2 was designed to carry a 500 kg payload to 1,000 km. It was modeled on the Pershing-2, with a solid-fuel first stage and a second stage similar to an upper-stage Ariane engine. Buenos Aires signed preliminary Condor-2 contracts in 1982 and more firmly established the program by 1984. The program received further formal approval through government decrees in 1984, 1985, and 1987.2 In the late 1980s, the German firm Messerschmitt-Bolkow-Blohm (MBB) withdrew from the Condor project which still continued in collaboration with Egypt and Iraq (which provided much of the financing).3 The missile team constructed production facilities in Cordoba province (near Argentina's observatory and satellite ground station) around 1983-86. Over one hundred and fifty West European engineers and twenty firms (some already involved with the Condor-I since 1979-81) worked on the Condor-2. MBB supplied the technology, missile design, integration and simulation assistance , and technical assistance for solid fuel motors; the Italian firm Snia-Bpd (Fiat-Avia) transferred solid propellant motors and guidance technology; and France's Sagem supplied guidance kits. The MTCR significantly impeded the Condor project because it relied heavily on foreign suppliers; when foreign technology was cut off, the Condor program faltered. For example, the initial solid-liquid fuel combination could not be developed and the missile team then sought a new solid-fuel second stage, but this increased the project's cost and development time. Moreover, the missile team could not build a reentry vehicle or accurate guidance and control systems without foreign assistance. The Condor had advanced French inertial guidance and also sought more advanced terminal guidance systems, but the 76 ARGENTINA, BRAZIL, SOUTH AFRICA MTCR blocked the transfer of such technology. A dummy missile test in 1988 revealed major technical problems. Despite...