A House Armed Services Committee (HASC) panel’s mark of its section of the fiscal year 2024 defense policy bill seeks a report on missile defense sensor coverage for Hawaii after a previous Hawaii-based radar system was scrubbed while the Defense Department seeks a more limited new sensor.
The HASC Strategic Forces subcommittee mark included language that noted the FY ‘23 defense budget request “effectively canceled all activities for the Homeland Defense Radar-Hawaii [HDR-H] due to ongoing reevaluation of the missile defense posture and sensor architecture in the area of responsibility of the United State Indo-Pacific Command.”
In September 2021, the White House said it opposed a provision in the FY ‘22 defense authorization bill requiring it to certify the HDR-H because the state was already defended against missile threats like the rest of the country and the Pentagon was focused on investing in capabilities like the Next Generation Interceptor (NGI) for the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system (Defense Daily, Sept. 22, 2021).
The Defense Department last sought $275 million in HDR-H funding in the FY ’20 budget. At that time, the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) expected the radar to finish development and initial fielding by FY ‘23 (Defense Daily, March 12, 2019).
MDA’s FY ‘21 budget request documents said it was cutting and postponing requested funds for the HDR-H due to a “shift in Department of Defense priorities,” Defense Daily, Dec. 7, 2020).
The FY ‘24 subcommittee mark noted even without HDR-H, DoD is requesting $40 million for the Hawaii Air Route Surveillance Radar Version 4 (ARSR-4), which aims to address DoD “capability gaps driven by new threats and provide dual use for Hawaii for Air Traffic Control and weather monitoring.”
The panel said DoD briefings thus far indicate ARSR-4 will have a “very limited viewing area,” which does not support adequate warning or threat discrimination, nor an effort to integrate it with the overall missile defense sensor architecture for increased defensive capabilities for Hawaii.
Given the cancelation of HDR-H and DoD seeking to add ARSR-4, the committee mark would direct the Secretary of Defense to submit a report to the defense committees within 90 days of bill enactment on the findings of a review of the integrated air and missile defense architecture of Indo-Pacific Command and specific programs of record that support more sensor coverage for Hawaii.
The lawmakers direct the report to identify investments that should be made to increase detection of non-ballistic threats and improve discrimination of ballistic missile threats particularly aimed at Hawaii and investments to integrate any sensors into the overall missile defense system to aid protecting Hawaii.
In June 2021, MDA Director Vice Adm. Jon Hill said it could be useful to add HDR-H back at a future point to aid in discrimination and tracking as North Korean ballistic missile threats get more complex over time (Defense Daily, June 24, 2021).