A USA Today story this morning asserted that the European Missile Defense (EMD) system would cost $9 billion to $13 billion and might not work, a report likely to be used by Democrats in Congress who argue for sidelining or killing EMD.
The story also was published as President Obama has offered Moscow a deal to drop the EMD plan that Russia opposes, if Russians will attempt to persuade Iran to cease moving toward nuclear missile capabilities. (Please see Space & Missile Defense Report, Monday, March 2 and March 9, 2009.)
More generally, Obama says he supports missile defense, but only if it is proven to work and is cost-effective, terms he didn’t define.
EMD is designed to protect Europe and the United States from missiles launched by rogue nations in the Middle East, such as Iran, which has both a nuclear production program and long-range missile technology. (Please see stories in this issue.)
The USA Today story cited non-recent reports, and long-time critics of missile defense programs.
One report cited, by the Government Accountability Office, or GAO, said tests haven’t proven that missile defense systems can take down incoming enemy missiles that deploy decoys along with warheads.
It is true that a test of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system deployed in Alaska and California shot down a target missile in a test where the target failed to emit decoys. It is unclear how that would prove the system would have failed to hit the target if the decoys had deployed. The EMD interceptors would be variants of the GMD interceptors.
The report also states that GMD failed to knock down targets in five out of 13 tests. But four of those failures were caused by glitches such as software problems, not by inherent deficiencies in the GMD system itself, Rick Lehner, the Missile Defense Agency spokesman.
Further, he noted, the missile-defense-system record is 37 successful kills of target missiles in 47 attempts since 2001. There has been a rising percentage of successes in recent years.
The story also notes, correctly, that EMD would leave a small part of Europe unprotected from Iranian missiles. But the EMD never was intended to protect all of Europe, with an expectation that some other system would help to fill the gap.
Since 1985, the United States has spent $144 billion on missile defense, the report continues. Proponents of missile defense, however, note that the loss caused by al Qaeda terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001, far exceeded $100 billion, and that attack didn’t involve nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction.
As well, proponents state that missile defense was supposed to be deployed before it was fully mature, before it might offer absolute certainty of demolishing incoming enemy missiles.
There is value, the proponents assert, in fielding a multi-layered missile defense system, because it raises uncertainty in enemy minds, a fear that if they launch missiles in an attack, those weapons might be demolished by U.S. missile defense systems.
The story includes comments from missile defense critics, including Philip Coyle, a former Pentagon testing and evaluation leader who has testified on occasion before the House Armed Services Committee strategic forces subcommittee, which has cut funding authorizations and placed limitations on some missile defense programs, including EMD.
Coyle recently likened missile defense to someone fastening feathers to their arms and attempting to fly. He also said a laser defense wouldn’t be able to harm a missile if it were painted white, despite a test where a laser blew a large hole in a white-colored missile body. (Please see photo in Space & Missile Defense Report, Monday, April 21, 2008.)