Missile Defense Critics Who Say No One Would Dare Hit United States With Missile Gamble With Lives: Romney
President Obama’s move to slash funds for missile defense programs by a total $1.2 billion is inexplicable, in the face of North Korean nuclear testing and long-range missile launches, Mitt Romney, the former and perhaps future Republican presidential candidate, and former governor of Massachusetts, said.
Romney said Obama has committed “a grave miscalculation,” given the rising missile threat worldwide in rogue states such as Iran and North Korea, and the instability in nuclear-missile states such as Pakistan.
He spoke today before the Heritage Foundation, a prominent Washington think tank, and appeared yesterday on Fox News Sunday.
“This isn’t the time to be cutting back on missile defense,” just when a “rogue nation” such as North Korea is engaging in threatening acts, he said. He pointed to the specter of “nuclear-armed missiles in the hands of evil men.”
Rather, given the hostile and threatening stance of the North and some other nations, “we have to be very aggressive in defending ourselves,” by constructing a robust multi- layered missile defense system, he said.
As for any officeholders “who believe they can make a bet that no one would fire a missile at the United States, I reject the idea that [they can make] a bet for me and for my family, and for the people of America,” Romney said. He spoke during a news conference, responding to a question from Space & Missile Defense Report.
He noted that “other nations are pursuing missile technology. North Korea is developing long-range missile capacity, and linking that with their nuclear capabilities. Iran is pursuing nuclear capabilities, and also has missile technology. A lot of people are building a lot of missiles, and they’re developing missile technology.”
Rather than sit idly by while this occurs, “Perhaps the single most important thing we can do to defend the world against the calamity of a missile attack is prepare a missile defense system” that would involve other allied nations along with the United States, he said.
“I have a hard time seeing many priorities in our defense budget that should be higher than missile defense,” he said, while adding that the United States also must have an effective force to counter conventional threats.
“If you don’t have any capacity to knock down an incoming missile, we would be extraordinarily vulnerable,” he cautioned.
Romney expressed dismay that the Obama administration can raise spending by trillions of dollars for domestic programs, while at the same time cutting defense spending, a disconnect that “makes no sense.”
This is especially problematical given the rising threat of missile attack, he said. “Iran seems hell bent on developing” nuclear-tipped missiles, he said.
“Backing away from missile defense would put America and Americans at risk,” he said.
And missile defense isn’t the only area being cut, Romney said. Rather, Obama is slashing many programs, so that defense spending that now is equivalent to 3.8 percent of U.S. gross domestic product will fall to just 3 percent of GDP over the next decade.
That compares to, for example, 20 percent of economic output for China, he observed.
And rather than bolstering the U.S. Navy fleet from 283 as of today up to 313 vessels, as a plan urges, “we’re heading to a Navy of 210 to 240 vessels” in coming years, which isn’t sufficient to meet requests of combatant commanders and other duties such as disaster relief, he noted.
Rather, Romney said, Obama should be increasing the defense budget, including a $50 billion amount that Romney said should be added to spending on modernization/procurement programs.
Romney’s comments came after North Korea in recent weeks detonated a nuclear weapon in an underground test, launched a long-range rocket where only the third stage failed to operate, launched other missiles, and threatened war against South Korea.
As well, Iran launched a satellite to show it commands the technology to build an intercontinental ballistic missile, and persisted in producing illicit nuclear materials that it says would be used for peaceful purposes, but which the West fears will be used to build nuclear weapons.
As well, Romney’s views came amid warnings from expert military analysts as to the true intentions of Kim Jong-Il, the North Korean leader.
For example, North Korea is bent upon nothing less than gaining ICBMs tipped with nuclear missiles, an analyst with the Heritage Foundation noted.
And that means the United States should be moving rapidly to develop a full ballistic missile defense system, Klingner added.
“The rapid pace of North Korea’s provocations since January indicates that North Korea is intent on achieving a viable nuclear weapon and ICBM delivery capability and recognition as a nuclear weapons state,” Klingner cautioned. “North Korea’s longstanding goal to develop the means to threaten the U.S. and its allies with nuclear weapons underscore the critical need for America to develop and deploy a missile defense system.”
Also, the United States and South Korea should be moving aggressively to punish those intransigent actions, but instead they are sitting by, with no real pain or punishment imposed on the North, he indicated.
This is not a path to progress, Klingner noted. Rather than responding to the arrival of Barack Obama in the White House, and his desire for talks, with a parallel moderation of the stance by Pyongyang, the opposite has occurred: Kim is now more belligerent than ever.
And the North is making unreasonable demands as well. Pyongyang now requires the removal of the U.S. “hostile policy.” This would likely include abrogation of the U.S.-South Korean defense alliance, removal of U.S. forces from South Korea, and abandonment of the U.S. nuclear security guarantee toward South Korea and Japan, Klingner stated. “A refusal by Washington and Seoul to accept such terms would, in Pyongyang’s eyes, equate to recognition as a nuclear weapons state.”
And matters likely will become even worse, the analyst continued.
“Pyongyang will continue its belligerent behavior by conducting additional missile and nuclear tests to advance its technical capabilities,” Klingner predicted. “North Korea may also risk more direct confrontations, such as a naval clash along the disputed inter-Korean maritime boundary in the West Sea.”
Risks of miscalculation are rising, he said.
A similar view came from another analyst in Washington. Those missile and nuclear tests show that North Korea is attempting to become a major threat, wielding nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles, according to a paper by Victor D. Cha, a faculty member with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank oriented toward defense studies.
Those provocative moves are “part of a broader effort to improve both the North’s long-range ballistic missile technology and its nuclear weapons capability,” according to Cha. “The April missile test, for example, deployed its first and second stages more successfully than the previous test in July, which failed less than a minute after launch. “The second nuclear test, moreover, apparently registered seismic activity consistent with a higher yield weapon (10-20 kilotons) than the October 2006 test (less than 1 kiloton).”
One reason for pugnacious Pyongyang moves may be that Kim is in deteriorating health, and wanting to shore up his status as supreme ruler before turning over reins of power to a son.
The threatening actions of the North “could reflect a leadership transition in the North in which the stroke-afflicted leader Kim … is gradually being succeeded by a coterie of hard-line loyalists and members of the Kim family,” Cha noted. “Internal political fluidity in totalitarian systems like North Korea usually gets externalized in belligerent — not conciliatory — behavior.”
Separately, Newsweek magazine — in a cover story and other stories by Fareed Zakaria, Hooman Majd, Maziar Bahari and an interview with Mohammad Khatami — argued that Iran is not a threat. As evidence, the issue dated today offers statements by Iranian leaders.