An upcoming missile defense review by the Department of Defense is long overdue and could lead to improvements in several important areas, according to a former chief of naval operations.
The review presents an opportunity to set priorities for missile defense spending, something that has been suggested for years due to budget constraints, retired Adm. Jonathan Greenert said Feb. 2 at a Capitol Hill event hosted by the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance (MDAA).
Even if the Trump administration boosts the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) budget by $1 billion to $2 billion a year, as some observers have predicted, DoD will still need to determine which of its many systems and technologies will get that funding, said Greenert, who was Navy chief from 2011 to 2015.
“Is national missile defense — the ground-based intercept — really number one?” he asked. For the Navy, how many cruisers and destroyers have to be “missile-defense capable? Not really clear.”
The review also could help define the role of international partners, such as Japan, South Korea and the United Kingdom, Greenert said. South Korea, for instance, could perform sea-based missile defense if it acquired interceptors for its destroyers and developed the appropriate rules of engagement.
The review could lead to a strategy to better integrate various ground- and sea-based missile defense systems and ensure no gaps exist among them. It could also clarify how systems developed by MDA should be transitioned to the military services that operate them.
“When MDA brings [a system] to the service, how is that handoff going to be and what is the agreement on the support of the system and the sustainment?” Greenert asked. “Right now, it’s too shaky and it’s too episodic.”
In a Jan. 27 memorandum to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, President Donald Trump called for several measures to “rebuild” the military, including “a new ballistic missile defense review to identify ways of strengthening missile-defense capabilities, rebalancing homeland and theater defense priorities, and highlighting priority funding areas.”
Also at the MDAA event, Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee’s seapower and projection forces panel, said he expects the Trump administration to pursue defense cooperation with Russia, but he cautioned that similar efforts by past administrations have failed to yield results.
Russia’s “objectives are very different” from those of the United States and its allies, Wittman said. “I think you have to go into this with a very, very healthy dose of skepticism.”