The view that the West is not interested in the Ukrainian military industrial complex (VPK) is now a hackneyed clich О . Yet last week’s visit by Thomas Pickering, Boeing senior vice-president for international relations, was extraordinary in many respects. The last time an executive of this level, directly accountable to the company’s president, visited this country was in 1999. It is also telling that Boeing’s fourth-ranking executive had meetings with President Leonid Kuchma, Verkhovna Rada Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn, and Yury Alekseyev, general manager of Dnipropetrovsk-based Pivdenmash, the former rocket-manufacturing plant. It was to be expected that the meetings between Mr. Pickering and topmost Ukrainian officials stirred up a wave of comments about Boeing’s interest in cooperating with Ukrainian businesses to deploy the US antimissile shield.
The Boeing senior vice-president said that Ukraine has a great potential for cooperating in the defense sphere as a participant in the National Anti-Missile Defense system program. According to Pickering, companies like Pivdenne Design Bureau and Pivdenmash Plant may form a solid foundation for this. Boeing knows about the Dnipropetrovsk-based space rocket center’s capabilities from first-hand experience. The company has been successfully cooperating with these Ukrainian enterprises since 1995, when it became a partner in the Sea Launch international project. To date, eleven Dnipropetrovsk-made Zenit-3SL vehicles have been launched. Boeing is now conducting talks with Ukraine about complementing Sea Launch with the Land Launch project that involves launching telecommunication satellites for Ukraine. Mr. Pickering said Sea Launch’s tight schedule for the next few years was expected to bring Ukraine 80 to 100 million dollars.
In addition, the two sides are cooperating on the design of a new Boeing-7E7 super long-range passenger aircraft. The American company has signed a contract with the Paton Institute to develop technology for welding composite materials that will be used in the construction of this aircraft.
A source close to the Ukrainian MIC has also reported that the Americans have made even more serious proposals. It has not yet been ruled out that sea platforms will be extensively used for launching Ukrainian-made vehicles as part of the testing of the US-developed kinetic anti-ballistic missile “killer.” It should be remembered that Boeing is not just known as one of the world’s largest producers of passenger airplanes. Out of the company’s 2003 total turnover of $50.5 billion, $27 billion were generated by military business, such as the production of military and cargo aircraft, missiles, as well as communications and surveillance systems. Boeing has been chosen as chief integrator for the US National Anti-Missile Defense (NAMD) system, one of the US’s top-priority projects. Next year the US will appropriate $10 billion for this program. It is expected the Americans will spend an annual $8-10 billion on NAMD, bringing the total expenditures for this project to $100 billion-$1 trillion by the year 2030. This makes it clear why Boeing is interested in this program: the company needs reliable subcontractors.
The first stage involves building and testing launch vehicles that will deliver killer missiles into outer space to intercept enemy ballistic missiles. Boeing has committed itself to manufacturing an interceptor missile capable of destroying a high-speed IBM by a direct hit.
The American company has suggested that Pivdenne Design Bureau and Pivdenmash Plant take on the development and production of the killer missile’s first and second stages. The US is only too well aware of Ukraine’s huge ballistic missile production capacity. Attracting Ukrainian scientists and engineers to this project will also reduce the danger of a “brain drain” to rogue states, where they might be involved in designing missiles.
Before Mr. Pickering’s visit, the National Space Agency of Ukraine and the US National Missile Defense Agency had exchanged opinions and suggestions about Ukraine’s likely contribution to the US antimissile shield now under construction. In addition to accepting the projects to develop the first and second stages for the American missile, Ukrainian experts have suggested that the Americans test the NAMD system by launching a number of Ukrainian- made Tsyklon-2 rockets whose performance resembles North Korea’s intercontinental ballistic missiles.
The Americans are closely studying the idea of building a far cheaper floating platform in Ukraine than the one used under the Sea Launch program. This platform could be used as a launching pad for missile test flights and checking the equipment as part of the NAMD system. This kind of platform can be installed in almost any place suitable for testing the killer missile’s parameters in all three stages of its flight: the launch, flight along the ballistic trajectory, and approach toward the target.
Mr. Pickering made it clear at a Kyiv press conference that statements from the two governments must follow experts’ opinions. When the governments of Ukraine and the US deem it necessary to organize this cooperation and coordinate its principles, the two sides will be mutually interested in the project, Boeing’s senior vice-president emphasized.
