A member of the Senate Armed Services Committee said April 7 that the United States should more than double its inventory of long-range, ground-based interceptors to defend against North Korea’s growing ballistic missile threat.
While the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system is on track to reach 44 interceptors, mostly at Fort Greely in Alaska, by the end of 2017, Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) said the number should be increased further, to as many as 100. Sullivan cited estimates that North Korea, which has accelerated its missile and nuclear weapons testing in recent years, could have up to 100 nuclear weapons by 2020.
Photo: Missile Defense Agency.
“We need to dramatically increase our interceptor capability,” Sullivan said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C.
Sullivan also called for more frequent GMD testing, saying fear of flight-test failure has made it difficult to develop improvements to the system. He noted that he and Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) inserted a provision in the fiscal year 2017 defense authorization act requiring the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) to flight-test GMD at least once a year.
“If we ever want to outpace the threat, we need to relearn how to fail,” Sullivan said. “Accepting failure is the only way we can ultimately succeed.”
GMD’s most recent intercept test, in which the system destroyed an intermediate-range ballistic missile target, occurred almost three years ago, in June 2014. The next test, GMD’s first attempt to shoot down an intercontinental ballistic missile, is expected later this year. Boeing [BA] has been GMD’s prime contractor since 2001.
Sullivan also called for developing new space-based sensors to provide persistent tracking of advanced missile threats. Several military leaders have said in recent months that such sensors will eventually be needed.
Sullivan endorsed several existing MDA efforts, including redesigning the GMD interceptor’s kill vehicle to make it more reliable; developing the Multi-Object Kill Vehicle, which would allow multiple kill vehicles to be deployed from a single interceptor booster; and building a Long Range Discrimination Radar for Clear Air Force Station in Alaska to distinguish ballistic missile warheads from decoys.
Sullivan said he plans to introduce a bipartisan bill “in the next month” to promote many of the improvements he is seeking. CSIS released a report, “Missile Defense 2020: Next Steps for Defending the Homeland,” that echoes many of his recommendations.