Despite international outrage over its downing, flight MH17 is not the first civilian airliner reportedly shot down by a rebel-fired anti-aircraft missile. Nor will it be the last, unless urgent steps are taken internationally. Next to chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, surface-to-air (SAM) missiles, including the shoulder-fired types known as “manpads” (man-portable air defence systems), pose the greatest threat to civilian safety. Yet major powers have supplied such missiles to rebel groups in different parts of the world for decades.
To be sure, MH17 fell victim to a vicious Russian-US proxy war over Ukraine that has destabilised that country and helped foment a raging civil war there. The MH17 crash, coming close on the heels of a new round of American sanctions against Moscow, promises to further escalate this proxy conflict, pitting the US and Russia in a new Cold War.
The downing occurred at a time when the US-backed government in Kiev had been waging artillery and air attacks on cities held by pro-Russian separatists, creating a humanitarian crisis and prompting the rebels and the regime to declare rival no-fly zones over parts of eastern Ukraine. In truth, this was a tragedy waiting to happen. In the absence of direct communication, air-traffic control over rebel-held territory, or the technology to detect a civil plane’s transponder, it appeared easy for a ground unit to mistake a commercial airliner for a military aircraft.
The question few have cared to ask is why a number of airlines were still flying over a major battle zone, despite the rebels demonstrating their anti-aircraft capability by shooting down a Ukrainian military transport plane, killing 49 people on July 14, three days before the MH17 crash. In contrast, some carriers, including Korean Air, Qantas, Asiana, and Taiwan’s China Airlines, had stopped using Ukrainian airspace by April.
There is even a bigger question: How can the world ensure that another commercial jetliner is not shot down? Today, the focus is on Russia’s role in training and arming separatists in eastern Ukraine with manpads and the more-lethal Buk-M2E missile launch platform. But the US has also armed rebels elsewhere with anti-aircraft weapons that have brought down passenger planes.
Afghan insurgents in the 1980s downed three passenger aircraft with US-supplied missiles. The deadliest incident occurred on September 4, 1985, when rebels shot down a Bakhtar Afghan Airlines’ AN-26, killing 52 people. Another 29 people were killed on April 10, 1988, when a second Afghan AN-26 was shot down. In the third case, an Ariana Airlines’ DC-10, with about 300 passengers on board, was struck by an insurgent-fired missile as it prepared to land in Kabul on September 21, 1984. Although the plane suffered extensive damage, it crash-landed with no fatalities.
Before the MH17 tragedy unfolded, President Barack Obama was seriously considering transferring manpads to Syrian rebels. After arming the “moderate” jihadists there with sophisticated TOW anti-tank missiles, White House contemplated introducing manpads as a “game-changer” in Syria, just as American supply of Stingers to rebels in the 1980s proved a game-changing development in Afghanistan. The MH17 episode, however, makes such transfers difficult. The more-radical Syrian groups are already armed with a limited number of manpads acquired from other sources.
The main difference between manpads and large vehicle-based systems like Buk is that the latter can target aircraft at cruising altitude. Shoulder-fired missile systems have a limited strike range of about six kilometres but can be transported and hidden easily. Heat-seeking manpads are among terrorism’s most dreaded weapons, capable of bringing down an aircraft that has just taken off or is about to land.
They thus pose a potent threat. Guerrillas have used them with stunning effect, downing two Boeing-737s in Angola in 1983-84 and a Congo Airlines Boeing-727 in 1998, killing a total of 171 people. In September 1993, rebels shot down two Tupolev planes of Transair Georgia in two straight days near the city of Sukhumi, Abkhazia, leaving 135 people dead.
The MH17 crash has ignited a debate on how to safeguard civil aircraft from SAMs. Technical options are available, such as installing infrared countermeasures on aircraft. Missile countermeasure systems, however, carry a high price tag of up to $3 million per aircraft. Their weight, moreover, can potentially decrease an aircraft’s fuel efficiency and thus add to an airline’s operating costs.
A more cost-effective approach to countering missile threats to civil aircraft would be political in nature, focussing on better geopolitics, improved regional security, enhanced safety measures in the vicinity of airports, and modified flight operations and air-traffic procedures to minimise risks.
Many of the SAMs that have been used against passenger jets by insurgents or are currently in rebel possession have been supplied by big powers as part of a strategy targeting specific regimes. Some such missiles have also proliferated to non-state actors because of national dysfunction (as in post-Gaddafi Libya) and a flourishing black market.
Currently there is no legal restriction on international transfer or trade in SAMs, although the 33-nation Wassenaar Arrangement has strengthened export guidelines on manpads. An international treaty is needed to bar states from transferring SAMs to non-state actors. Such a pact can open the path to concerted international action against the thriving black market in such weapons.
The writer is a geostrategist.
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