The intrigue regarding the acquisition by the Qatar Armed Forces of the American high-potential radar of the AN / FPS-132 Block 5 EWR missile attack warning system has persisted for more than 3 years. So, the first information about the upcoming contract for the sale of "strategic radar" appeared on July 29, 2013, when the Pentagon's military-technical cooperation DSCA (Defense Security Cooperation Agency) sent an official letter to the US Congress about the readiness of signing with Doha 1, 07 billion contract for the supply of the above-mentioned radar to the Central Asian country. Then the event for a long time dropped out of the news feeds of numerous media outlets, as well as analytical information resources. Today, March 10, 2017, the first and final advances on the lingering issue have surfaced. The US Department of Defense has confirmed the entry into force of the "Foreign Military Sales" contract between Raytheon and the Qatar Armed Forces, according to which the main structural elements of the station, including the AFAR canvases, the cooling system and the control room, will be ready by the summer of 2021, after which will go to the customer.
There are several reasons for such an expensive defense purchase. First, this is the formation of an all-altitude long-range radar warning line for the aerospace defense of the "Arabian coalition" in the eastern air direction. Here they are banking on a possible regional military conflict with Iran, in the course of which Tehran will use medium-range ballistic missiles of the Sajil family without hesitation. The AN / FPS-132 Block 5 radar will definitely be network-centric with the Patriot PAC-3 anti-aircraft missile systems, as well as the more serious THAAD systems, which will also be acquired by Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and possibly Saudi Arabia. … AN / FPS-132 can detect starting Iranian ballistic missiles immediately after leaving the radio horizon at a distance of more than 2000 km, and then issue early target designation for Patriot and THAAD complexes. At the same time, the centimeter multifunctional AN / TPY-2 GBR radar ("shooting radar" of the THAAD complex) has an instrumental range of 1000 to 1500 km, which would be quite enough for an early warning of the approach of Iranian missiles, given the geography of this region. Apparently, there are other goals here, which we will describe below. The transfer by the United States of such a strategically important object as AN / APS-132 Block 5 to small Qatar, located only 190 km from the main enemy, Iran, can only indicate that the object will be under close control and partial control of American specialists. This is confirmed by the sensational news on December 9, 2014 with reference to the resource spacewar.com about the creation of a regional air defense-missile defense command center in Qatar by the Raytheon company.
This is not surprising at all, because we all know very well that the most important American airbase El Udeid is located on the territory of Qatar, which is capable of receiving up to 100 units of tactical and strategic aviation. This airbase is directly involved in the actions of B-52H strategic bombers in the Syrian theater of operations, RC-135V / W radio / electronic aircraft, as well as AWACS E-3D / G AWACS aircraft both on the Iranian air lines over the Persian Gulf and in Syrian airspace. Moreover, this air base is home to the headquarters of the US Central Command, as well as the 609th Aerospace Operations Center and the 83rd Expeditionary Air Group of the Royal Air Force of Great Britain. The operational-strategic importance of the El-Udeid airbase simply obliges to strengthen this area with numerous divisions of the Patriot and THAAD air defense systems. But the construction of the AN / APS-132 radar here is difficult to call a reasonable decision, since in the event of a conflict with Iran, it will be destroyed primarily by a massive missile strike of short- and medium-range cruise and ballistic missiles. A much more expedient and safe location for such an object is the southwest of Jordan, or the central administrative districts of Saudi Arabia (more than 1000 km from the Iranian border). But, apparently, the decision to deploy the radar in Qatar, veiled by the sale, sees other, deeper goals of an operational-strategic nature, against which the observation of the Iranian aerospace sector looks less significant.
It is worth noting that radars of this type are included in the basis of the early warning system of the United American-Canadian Command of the North American Aerospace Defense (NORAD) and are among the most strategically important and high-tech facilities of the US Armed Forces. The radar data are based at the Californian Bale airbase, in the Greenlandic Thule, at the British RAF Filingdales facility, at the Otis airbase (Cape Cod, Massachusetts), and also at the Clear airbase (Alaska). In view of this, sending a more advanced and expensive modification of this radar to the highly unsafe Qatar for the sake of detecting Iranian missiles alone looks like complete nonsense. Another thing is the early detection and tracking of medium-range ballistic missiles and intercontinental ballistic missiles launched from the western regions of China, as well as the Asian part of Russia. So, for example, it is known that the AN / FPS-132 early warning radar in the British Faylingdales does not make it possible to detect our Yars and Poplar in the initial section of the trajectory, which are launched across the United States through the polar zone, because the minimum distance from the radar to trajectory is 5200 km (PGRK RT-2PM "Topol" and RS-24 "Yars" are stationed in Barnaul and Novosibirsk), which is already beyond the power capabilities of the station, the range of which does not exceed 5000 km. Naturally, in this case, the AN / FPS-132 deployed in Qatar will not be able to detect them, since the radio horizon will become an obstacle: from Qatar to the Asian part of the Russian Federation, 4 thousand km, and the trajectory of an ICBM going northward is unlikely to appear on display radar until it leaves the 5500 km range.
But with ballistic missiles launched at strategically important command centers of the US and NATO forces in Western Europe, everything will be much easier. Their trajectory, passing over the middle strip of the European part of Russia, just fits into the 3200 km distance from the "Qatar" radar AN / FPS-132 Block 5. They will be escorted in the airspace of Kazakhstan, much earlier than it will do. British EWS node in Faylingdales. And this is plus 2-3 additional minutes for notification, which in a conflict can be decisive for the effective operation of the Aegis Ashor anti-missile systems in Poland. Also, this radar will be in great demand for tracking the exoatmospheric section of the aerospace over China. The Americans will be able to detect Chinese DF-31A MRBMs and DF-41 ICBMs launched from mobile launchers deployed to the western mountainous Tibetan and Xinjiang Uygur autonomous regions. At the moment, the US Armed Forces do not have radar systems in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region capable of monitoring the airspace of the PRC over the above-mentioned remote areas. The issue can be resolved by the transfer to the Indian Ocean of the towed floating missile warning system of the X-band SBX-1, but in the context of the rapid development of the underwater attack component of the Chinese Navy and long-range anti-ship missiles YJ-18, such an action may well result in the loss of a radar worth 900 million dollars. Moreover, for the regular SBX-1 duty off the southern coast of India, much more financial costs would be required for additional maintenance of the floating platform and the provision of anti-missile defense with the help of a shipborne CMG, represented by 2-4 EM of the Arley Burke class.
The AN / FPS-132 Block 5 radar deployed in Qatar will be easier to maintain, it will be able to cover the exoatmospheric space over the PRC right up to the Hubei province, while being at a more or less safe distance from China. It won't have to involve the US Navy's Aegis ships to protect it. What other "horizons" can open up for the American operators of the new air defense command post in Qatar after taking over AN / FPS-132 on alert?
It is easy to determine by starting from the field of view of a given station. Its antenna post is represented by 2 AFARs with canvases about 28 meters in diameter. The canvases are installed with a 120-degree "camber" and have a field of view of 120 degrees each, which creates a huge 240-degree field of view. The directional diagrams of the antenna arrays will "look" in the northwest and southeast directions, which, with a 5500-kilometer range, will make it possible to control the aerospace sector from the Kola Peninsula to the western part of the Indian Ocean. At the same time, we are focusing on the Indian Ocean, which in the future will become one of the frontiers for the launch of Chinese JL-2 submarine ballistic missiles (SLBMs), as well as more modern products across the United States. The trajectory in this case passes over the territory of India, China and Russia and has a length of about 12 thousand km to Alaska and 15 thousand km to the central states of the United States (it is known that now JL-2 has a range of 12000 km). The radar station in Qatar will allow the start of the tracking of Chinese missiles immediately after the launch from the Indian Ocean, while the target tracks will be in the station's coverage area up to the NORAD area of responsibility, where similar AN / FPS-132 in Tula, Faylingdales and Clear related to PAVE PAWS and BMEWS systems. After that, the process of interception of ballistic missiles by GBI exoatmospheric interceptor missiles of the strategic missile defense system GBMD (Ground-Based Midcourse Defense) will begin.
As you can see, the sale of the AN / FPS-132 Block 5 early warning radar to Qatar includes not only tracking the Iranian air route, but also a quite effective strategy of "shackling" the actions of the underwater nuclear component of the Chinese Navy, as well as early warning of the command of the American missile defense system in Central and Eastern Europe on the possible launch of Russian ICBMs from the Asian part of the Russian Federation at strategic military targets in Western Europe. This is another "massive stone in the garden" of our Strategic Missile Forces, an asymmetric response to which can only be the deployment of a "Voronezh-M / DM" type radar in Venezuela.
