By Emelie Rutherford
The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is looking for savings within its forthcoming longterm budget request so it can seek funds to double the number of Aegis Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptors in the coming years, the agency’s director said.
MDA Director Air Force Lt. Gen. Trey Obering said yesterday that his agency’s Program Objective Memorandum 10 (POM ’10) request will definitely seek funding for the SM-3 and THAAD doubling.
“Right now I’ve been reviewing options, but the options that I’ve reviewed for our POM request all have that in there,” he told reporters after talking at missile-defense conference on Capitol Hill sponsored by the Lexington Institute.
A U.S. Strategic Command-led study recommended doubling the number of these two interceptors, he said.
“What we’re trying to do now is determine how we do that, how we flow those interceptors in, and then what do we have to do in our standing development programs to accommodate that,” Obering said. “Because we’re not going to get more than the money that we’ve already been asking for, and we know that.”
He said “if the warfighter needs more SM-3s and more THAADs, which they have requested, then it’s our job to supply those.”
“And then it’s our job to make recommendations to the deputy secretary, to the secretary, and ultimately to the president as to if we do that, what don’t we do, or what do we delay, or what do we restructure, and so that’s what we’re in the process of doing right now,” he said.
Obering added there are ways to reduce costs beyond ordering more missiles so that the unit costs drop.
“We really are trying to see how we can actually reduce the cost,” he said. “That’s something that we are continually looking at on a daily basis, almost, in terms of the infrastructure that we use, how can we offload engineers that are no longer needed on the programs, and we try to do that.”
It could cost near $1 billion just to double the number of SM-3 interceptors–as part of an effort to bolster theater missile defense from the sea–Congressional Research Service analyst Ronald O’Rourke said during yesterday’s conference.
Noting there are 147 SM-3 interceptors in the current program of record, O’Rourke said, “These missiles are several million dollars a piece, so if you were to buy something like another 150 of them, then we’re talking about…an additional investment of upwards of $1 billion for those 150 missiles.”
Obering did not talk of Congress’ proposed missile-defense cuts at great length during his speech at yesterday’s conference in a House office building. However, he did express concern that programs lawmakers targeted for less funding than the White House requested are “programs that are allowing us to deal with the more critical threats and countermeasures.”
MacKenzie Eaglen, a senior policy analyst for national security at The Heritage Foundation and one of yesterday’s speakers, said it is time to move funding and management authority for sea-based missile-defense systems from MDA to the Navy.
“It has long been the expectation that mature missile-defense systems developed under management of MDA would be transferred to the services to manage remaining development and procurement activities,” Eaglen said. “Congress should direct DoD to approve the transfer of these programs to the Navy. Because the sea-based systems developed by the MDA have matured to the point where this transfer is warranted.”
Obering said during his speech that while MDA always intended to transfer mature systems’ assets to the services, “it is critical that we do not transition research and development responsibility” because of integration work MDA does.
“Having to maintain that integration is critical,” he said, noting how MDA was able to help make necessary modifications of the Aegis ballistic missile defense weapon system used for the February shootdown of a wayward U.S. spy satellite.
“We would never have been able to do that had we had service ownership of these programs,” he said.
Obering said MDA should “maintain responsibility for configuration management control, research and development of these systems.”
“Transferring procurement, operations, and sustainment is perfectly fine and that’s what we intend to do in terms of the department,” he said.
The general told reporters talks are progressing for a third missile-defense site in Europe–another area of keen interest to lawmakers.
Obering said he is more optimistic now that he was previously about the United States reaching an agreement for the site with Poland. Consultations with Poland will resume in the next week or so, he said.
“If you had asked me maybe a month back if I was optimistic about that I would’ve said, ‘No, I’m not,’ but now I am,” he said.
“We’re seeing…more fruitful discussions between the sides,” Obering said, noting that the State Department is the lead for those talks with Poland. MDA provides technical and programmatic support for the discussions with Poland and the Czech Republic, he said.
Obering described discussions with the Czech Republic as nearly complete. “It’s in the process now of crossing some T’s and dotting some I’s and we expect that agreement to be signed very shortly,” he said, noting the agreement will need the Czech parliament’s ratification. Obering said he will travel to the Czech Republic soon to meet with parliamentarians and attend a missile-defense conference.
Asked about reports that Lithuania could be an alternate site to Poland, Obering said “Poland is still our number-one choice.”