Proponents of a dependable U.S. missile defense system of systems shouldn’t worry about the $1.2 billion of cuts to missile defense programs that President Obama and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates have sent to Congress, a military analyst argues.
Michael O’Hanlon, senior fellow with the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington, D.C., presented his argument in The Examiner, a free Washington tabloid paper.
He concedes that underfunding missile defense would be a “serious problem,” because the threat from ballistic and cruise missiles does indeed exist.
But he argues that the proposed Obama missile defense cuts aren’t a problem because some missile defense programs continue to receive full funding or increases, and “there is no cause for alarm that we are lowering our guard.”
The Obama budget would cut Missile Defense Agency funding to about $7.8 billion in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2010, from the $9 billion plus now, a 13 percent drop.
Taking a larger view, including some other anti-missile programs, O’Hanlon uses different numbers that also show a drop.
“Under the Obama budget, missile defense will remain well funded, to the tune of about $10 billion annually,” O’Hanlon wrote. “That is less than the Bush administration’s $12 billion, but quite a bit more than the average of $6 billion to $7 billion a year under Ronald Reagan and the first President Bush and more than Bill Clinton’s $5 billion (in inflation-adjusted 2009 dollars).”
At the same time, O’Hanlon acknowledges that in protecting the United States and its allies from ballistic attack, the number of dollars doesn’t tell the entire story. Rather, one also must consider the threat that must be defeated. And the threat has increased.
“Of course, budget comparisons only go so far,” O’Hanlon continued. “The threat has grown, so we should spend more today.” He also agreed that “The threat of ballistic and cruise missiles of all ranges is clearly a major potential danger to our troops under many plausible scenarios.”
That said, however, he endorses the Obama budget proposal cutting missile defense funding, arguing that the cuts haven’t “gutted missile defense.”
So he justifies the cuts by returning to the number of dollars being appropriated, saying the cuts are “measured and prudent,” though he concedes that “[t]here is room for debate on specifics …”
In urging acceptance of the Obama budget cuts, O’Hanlon argues that compared to 20 years ago, the United States has far more missile defense systems than it did then.
“The U.S. Missile Defense Agency now has upgraded radars in Japan, the United Kingdom, Alaska and California and has a sea-based mobile radar off Alaska,” he observed. “The United States has 18 Aegis-class ships with the capability to intercept medium-range missiles.” Actually, they are Arleigh Burke Class destroyers and Ticonderoga Class cruisers with Aegis weapon-control systems and Standard Missile interceptors.
O’Hanlon continued, “We have about 500 Patriot missile interceptors for short-range missile defense, and nearly 100 Theater High Altitude Area Defense interceptors for medium- range land-based defense. The Missile Defense Agency has conducted at least 35 successful hit-to-kill intercept tests and continues to work on new technologies, including a more advanced medium-range interceptor system in conjunction with Japan.”
So, if missile defense systems are scoring well in tests, proving themselves, should they then be punished with budget cuts?
Further, as he already noted, the missile threat confronting the United States is vastly greater now than in the 1980s. And, again, as he noted, the question is just how great that threat is now, and will be; and, as well, whatever the level of missile defense capability in place, is it sufficient to meet the current threat, and foreseeable future threat?
There, many observers are not nearly so sanguine as O’Hanlon on whether the United States is fielding an adequate missile shield.
Then O’Hanlon gets down to specifics: there are some individual missile defense programs that are gutted in the Obama budget plan:
- The budget bars purchasing any more Airborne Laser (ABL) aircraft, leaving just the one prototype Boeing 747-400, a heavily modified jumbo jet filled with laser machinery and systems to aim the laser beam at enemy missiles. Research only could continue on that one plane. O’Hanlon uses a 1980s-style term to ridicule the ABL, saying it is “designed to shoot down missiles Star-Wars-style with light rays.” In fact, lasers in tests have blown large holes in missile bodies. The ABL program was frozen in its tracks before the prototype ABL was given a chance to prove itself in a test this year using the laser to kill a target missile in flight.
- Obama also would kill another missile defense program outright, the Kinetic Energy Interceptor (KEI). Together, ABL and KEI were the two leading systems designed to annihilate enemy missiles in their most vulnerable portion of trajectory flight, the boost phase just after launch. That is when the enemy missile is emitting a hot exhaust plume that is easily tracked, destroying the enemy missile before it can emit multiple warheads or confusing decoys or chaff. Also, hitting the enemy weapon in its boost phase means if there is a problem, U.S. forces still have a chance to destroy it in its midcourse flight. Too, hitting an enemy missile while it’s over the enemy nation means that fallout from its nuclear or other mass-destruction warhead cascades down on the enemy nation, not on international waters or U.S. territory. And if that fails, then other missile defense systems can hit it in its terminal flight just before it reaches a target, such as a U.S. city. O’Hanlon agrees that once can question a decision to slam both boost-phase missile defense programs in the budget. “Critics have a point in noting that both the laser and the kinetic energy interceptor are being curtailed, because these are the nation’s two principal boost-phase defenses,” he wrote.
- Another program that the Obama budget slashes is the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system, also called National Missile Defense. This is the only currently operational system designed to take on enemy long-range and intercontinental ballistic missiles, and specifically is designed to counter the rising threat posed by North Korea. (More on this later) The Obama budget would drop earlier plans to have 44 GMD interceptors in ground silos, and instead stop with just 30 silos emplaced in the ground. The other 14 silos would be placed in storage. O’Hanlon says 30 would be sufficient, given the magnitude of the North Korean threat. However, U.S. intelligence has been caught by surprise before, such as failing to predict Pyongyang launching a missile that soared over Japan and into the Pacific Ocean in 1998, and failing to foretell the time when the North would detonate a nuclear weapon in an underground test.
- Another Obama decision was to provide only a token $51 million for the planned European Missile Defense (EMD) system designed to protect Europe and the United States from Iranian missile attacks. EMD would include a radar in the Czech Republic and interceptors in ground silos in Poland. O’Hanlon said there is “good logic” to these moves. He asserted that “the Obama administration is right to preserve the option of deployment but also right not to deploy now.” He added that “Iranian missiles are a future, not present, threat.” Again, U.S. intelligence has been wrong before here. It predicted it would be years before Iran would have a missile capable of striking parts of Europe or Russia. But then Iran launched a satellite that 30 minutes later was over the United States, proving Tehran possesses the technology to build an ICBM able to strike targets anywhere in the world.
- While O’Hanlon didn’t mention it, the Obama budget also would abandon the Multiple Kill Vehicle that would sling multiple objects weighing about 10 pounds each, providing multiple chances to annihilate an incoming enemy missile.
Now let us examine the missile threat confronting the United States.
Iran is producing nuclear materials in contravention of world opinion and United Nations resolutions. It plans to ramp up from about 5,000 to 7,000 centrifuges processing uranium gas up to 55,000 of the whirling machines. While Iran claims the fissile material will be used to power electrical generation, Western leaders fear it will be processed further to weapons-grade strength and used to build nuclear weapons. And, as mentioned, Iran also possesses the technology to build ICBMs.
As for North Korea, it already has nuclear weapons, which it has tested underground at least twice. And it is developing the long-range Taepo Dong-2 missile. While the first test launch in 2006 was a failure, a recent launch saw both the first and second stages of the missile work well. But O’Hanlon is dismissive of chances that the next Taepo Dong-2 test will reach full success, arguing that so what, it will be some time before North Korea has a large arsenal of ICBMs. “Pyongyang is very unlikely to start mass producing such systems like sausages,” he wrote. If they do just that, however, he said the United States could launch aircraft strikes to kill their missiles on the launch pad, not needing U.S. missile defense systems. (One then would wonder, why have an American missile defense system at all.)
Overall, O’Hanlon argues that there are multiple missile defense systems, which he sees as “redundancy.” However, as he notes, there is no redundancy in boost phase programs, where both of the main systems are, effectively, eliminated. There also is no system geared primarily to protecting Europe.
But O’Hanlon indicates that there are other, more important uses for the money cut from missile defense programs. “Given the other challenges facing the nation on and off the battlefield, Gates’ proposals are prudent and sound,” O’Hanlon argued.
However, there are many who might take issue with that, saying that, saying that even in difficult economic times, until Congress has provided for the common defense, there is no more urgent program, no higher purpose.
To read O’Hanlon’s column titled “Obama administration’s sound thinking on missile defense” in full, please go to http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/world/ on the Web.
In the piece, he acknowledges that the United States faces a far greater missile threat worldwide than it did 20 years ago. Then consider these changes in the missile threat that have emerged in the past three years, some of them in the past few months:
Iran now threatens Israel in multiple ways: with thousands of short- and medium-range rockets and missiles provided to Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Iran itself also has fired missiles at Israel. As we mentioned, Iran has launched a satellite to prove its mastery of multi-stage missilery, a requisite to building ICBMs. Iran also has its massive nuclear materials production program. And Iran has launched a missile from a submerged submarine. Of greater concern, perhaps, are comments that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has made, that Israel should be wiped from the map, that Israel soon shall cease to exist, and that Ahmadinejad envisions the world without the United States.
As for North Korea, its failure in launching the long-range Taepo Dong-2 missile in 2006 was followed by the success of launching the missile this year and seeing the first two stages work well. Also, North Korea already has built nuclear weapons. It admits to producing plutonium-based atomic bombs, but Western observers fear Pyongyang also is prosecuting a secret, parallel nuclear weapons production program involving highly enriched uranium. As for worrisome statements from those in power, North Korea has threatened to launch a “merciless” nuclear attack if its sovereignty is violated. That apparently was a threat aimed at U.S. or other forces that might board ships leaving North Korea to search them for contraband proliferating nuclear or missile gear.
What O’Hanlon didn’t touch upon is the rapid growth of offensive missile capabilities advanced by China. While China has said it will invade and seize control of Taiwan by force, if the island nation doesn’t voluntarily submit to rule by Beijing, the United States nominally is committed to defend Taiwan, urging China to resolve its dispute with Taiwan by peaceful means. Meanwhile, China has 1,500 missiles aimed at the Taiwan Strait, missiles that could sink a U.S. aircraft carrier if President Obama were to order a Navy strike group into the Strait to block Chinese hostilities, as President Clinton did when China began firing missiles toward Taiwan.
Further, China has new land-based ICBMs with a 7,000-mile range capable of striking the United States. And it has Jin Class submarines with nuclear-tipped missiles boasting a range of almost 5,000 miles. That means that a Chinese boat could be 2,000 miles from the United States, submerged and silent under the Pacific, and fire a missile that could strike New York or Washington.
Clearly, the missile threat confronting the United States is increasing, rapidly, rather than shrinking, as O’Hanlon notes. How this comports with missile defense cuts is baffling to many members in Congress, who may carry the day in restoring the missing funds, perhaps with increased appropriations for some programs.