WASHINGTON — New presidential guidance on the application of the Missile Technology Control Regime is designed to help US partners and allies build up their space and missile capabilities by easing the export of space launch vehicles, precision-guided munitions and technology to enable them to develop advanced missiles, according to current and former government officials.
The new National Security Memorandum (NSM) was signed by Biden on Jan. 3 but not announced formally until Tuesday via a White House fact sheet. The full text of the NSM has not been released but a spokesperson confirmed the guidance went into immediate effect.
While the Biden team is less than two weeks from its exit, NSMs remain in force from administration to administration unless and until a new president proactively decides to overturn them. While it’s not clear what a Trump administration may do, the first Trump administration made updating the MTCR guidance part of its focus on increasing arm sales abroad.
The new standard “Means we now have more opportunity to boost our friends’ production of advanced missiles, strengthening collective deterrence and defense by increasing the global availability and interoperability of long-range and other Precision Guided Munitions among U.S. allies and partners,” a spokesperson for the National Security Council (NSC) told Breaking Defense today. “At the same time, we will continue to impede access to advanced missile technology by bad actors.”
Sean Wilson, who recently stepped down as director of International Space Policy at the National Space Council, told Breaking Defense that “This is an important policy shift for the United States. It strengthens the U.S. ability to deter our adversaries, expands U.S. exports (and associated jobs) in crucial high-tech sectors, and broadens the scope of future space partnerships with U.S. allies and partners.”
The MTCR, established in 1987, is a voluntary multinational agreement that constrains the spread of nuclear capable missiles by imposing strict export controls on “rockets and unmanned aerial vehicles capable of delivering a payload of at least 500 kg to a range of at least 300 km and on equipment, software, and technology for such systems” to non-member states, according to a State Department fact sheet.
These technologies are known as Category 1 items under the MTCR, and traditionally Washington has had a policy of discouraging even allies and partners who are members from building their own such capabilities. However, there have been efforts — under both the Trump and Biden administrations — to change how the government views arms export requests under MTCR due to the spread of capabilities, such as long-range drones or space systems, that are no longer rare technologies.
Under the new rules, the White House “directs the interagency to provide increased flexibility for case-by-case review and facilitate support for certain MTCR Category I military missiles, Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), and Space Launch Vehicle (SLV) systems to certain partners with strong export control systems,” the White House fact sheet said.
The NSC spokesperson elaborated that the new policy “wholly overhauls and replaces the longstanding U.S. government policy for implementation of the MTCR guidelines, re-emphasizing U.S. commitment to nonproliferation and accounting for the global availability of Precision Guided Munitions and other technologies and capabilities.”
Previously, the US unilaterally has barred the sale of space launch vehicles (SLVs) to MTCR members with the exception of countries that were among the original signatories — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom — and India, which was granted an exception to the rule in 2005. (India joined the MTCR agreement in 2016.)
The new policy eliminates those restrictions.
“The NSM establishes that the MTCR is not designed to impede national space programs or international cooperation in such programs as long as such programs could not contribute to delivery systems for WMD [weapons of mass destruction],” the White House fact sheet states. Now, “transfers of MTCR Category I SLV related commodities, software, and technology will be considered on a case-by-case basis for select and vetted partner space programs and participation in international space programs, whether such programs are governmental or commercial in nature.”
The new guidelines thus support the efforts by the Biden administration — with strong support from the Defense Department — has been pursuing over the past several years to bolster commercial and military space “integration” with allies, particularly those in the Asia-Pacific region to help counter China’s military space buildup.
For example, in remarks Jan. 6 at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi in New Delhi, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan noted that the policy changes would spur increased bilateral space cooperation.
“[A]s a result of new updates to our missile technology control export policies that President Biden signed out just last week—and which I’m glad to announce publicly for the first time today—our commercial and civil space partnership is set for lift off,” he said.
The Pentagon also has been eagerly pursuing military cooperation with India, including through commercial cooperation in areas such as space domain awareness and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.
The revised MTCR guidelines around space assets further were designed to fit the needs of the United Kingdom and Australia, the two allies involved in the trilateral AUKUS pact, as well as South Korea, according to a former administration official familiar with the NMS development.
“I think AUKUS was a special pain point,” said the former administration official, explaining that Washington is working with the United Kingdom and Australia “on nuclear powered submarines armed with conventional missiles on one hand,” but on the other refusing to sell those countries “liquid fueled SLV” rocket stages.
Indeed, the White House fact sheet notes that the new policy will help with AUKUS implementation.
Nonproliferation Concerns
The Biden White House insists that the new MTCR policy is not only consistent with, but actually reinforces, US nonproliferation goals.
“These updates reflect a renewed U.S. commitment to nonproliferation, while advancing the President’s goals of strengthening allied defense capabilities, bolstering the U.S. defense industrial base, streamlining defense trade, and deterring adversaries,” the fact sheet states.
However, some long-time export control advocates are wary.
“Our government may want to make love by sharing dangerous missile technology with countries it views as ‘people like us.’ That’s a policy decision. But in this case, the White House is trying to dress this love up as if it’s making nonproliferation. It’s not,” said Henry Sokolski, executive director of The Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, who served as the head of Pentagon nonproliferation policy under George H.W. Bush.
Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, expressed some concern about the potential for widening sales of long-range drones.
“All the major drone manufacturers want to be able to sell their weaponry to all sorts of countries. So there’s been a big industry push to loosen MTCR guidelines in that regard,” he said.
Further, he said, the fact that Sullivan made the announcement in India may backfire on the US efforts to talk an already-reluctant Pakistan out of pursuing long-range ballistic missiles. (Pakistan is not an MTCR member.)
In remarks at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on Dec. 19, Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer said that if Pakistan builds such missiles, Islamabad “would have the capability to strike targets well beyond South Asia, including in the United States, raising real questions about Pakistan’s intentions.”