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June 19, 2009
Exclusive: Cuts in Missile Defense Spending Dangerous and Shortsighted
The House Armed Services Committee rejected during consideration of the defense authorization legislation on Tuesday June 16th amendments to restore funding for missile defense programs. The votes generally reflected the partisan makeup of the Committee membership. Was this simply a reflection of the traditional debate between the two parties over missile defense? It is well known that Democrats have generally been wary of missile defense, especially systems designed to protect the United States homeland and that Republicans have championed such systems. However, for a time during the past decade, both Republicans and Democrats on the Committee jointly worked to expand support for missile defense. Just last year, a Democrat-controlled Congress approved over 95 percent of the missile defense budget requests of the Bush administration. So why are things different today?
Two separate but related forces are at work. The first is the relative dramatic increase in the threat, made visible by consecutive rocket launches by both Iran and North Korea in the past two months. In addition is the explosion of another nuclear weapon by Pyongyang. Added to that is the continued development of nuclear weapons by Tehran, a program that a recent report of the UN International Atomic Energy Administration, IAEA, described as expanding yet hidden from proper inspection. These events came just after the Administration had “reset” the ballistic missile defense budget with cuts of some $1.2 billion for the 2010 Fiscal Year.
The second remains the historical “Cold War hangover” infecting traditional opponents of missile defense who remain prisoners of history and unable to think creatively about the very new threats we face. During the Bush administration, unable to sustain missile defense budget cuts in the face of threatened Presidential vetoes, opponents were generally cooperative in pushing through the defense budgets even when they acquired the majority in 2007, with the exception most notably of European based missile funding.
But this changed with a new administration. The long held belief that missile defenses are inherently unstable re-emerged. The charge that the previous administration had been “obsessed” with missile defense, made repeatedly after 9/11, also may have played a role. Further causing a diminished commitment to missile defense funding was a perceived need to get U.S. and Russian relations on a new more cooperative plane, a reflection of Moscow’s virulent opposition to the proposed deployment of a European-based missile defense based in Poland and the CzechRepublic.
The claim that a European based system threatens Russian missiles and thus promotes “instability” is so demonstrably wrong as to be almost laughable. The facts are that interceptors based in Poland would have to chase Russian rockets aimed over the pole at the United States. In such a chase, the interceptors could “acquire” the Russian missiles but a “fire solution” could not materialize to allow them to be fired and catch the Russian rockets. Every simulation the US has performed under this scenario comes to this result. But the Russians apparently are convinced that a U.S. missile defense based in Europe has to be evidence of U.S. hegemonic goals. This is not unlike the position taken by some U.S. critics of missile defense that have claimed “first the shield and then the sword” when describing U.S. defense strategy.
Other reasons for the reductions in the missile defense budgets may also be due to those critics who have claimed that the Alaskan and Californian based missile defenses now deployed against long range missile defenses can’t work. Others have derided the missile “threats” as little more than “science projects” unworthy of our concern and they may have had some initial influence as well. Even others have said that since such rockets have a “return address” if ever fired, we would know where such launches would have originated and thus could retaliate. This then ensures that “deterrence” – as achieved during the Cold War – works and no such launches would ever occur. The need for missile defenses thus becomes less of a priority.
a partial reset of the missile defense budget may also have been the result of critics believing U.S. missile defenses might become “too effective.” In that vein, some critics are worried that the effective development of sea-based boost phase capabilities against North Korea and Iran – needed to deal with the very counter measures and decoys we were told our currently deployed mid-course system in Alaska cannot overcome – would be capable of shooting down Chinese missiles as well. This would in their view “undermine deterrence.” But in this case it is the Chinese ability to prevent the U.S. from coming to the defense of Taiwan that is being “deterred,” which in turn would give the PRC an unfettered ability to commit aggression against Taipei, for example. In fact, however, a sea or land based boost phase capability against Tehran and Pyongyang would have no similar capability against the PRC because the latter’s missiles are launched much too far inland.
But even given this unfortunate mindset of many missile defense critics, the conjunction of near simultaneous Iranian and North Korean multiple and largely successful missile tests might reasonably be the basis for a “rethink” of such funding cuts. This is for two reasons: (1) the pause pursued by the administration is with respect to the possible deployment of long range missile defenses in Europe and that is where the emerging Iranian threat is most serious; and (2) the cut in the number of deployed interceptors for Alaska is the deployment explicitly meant to protect against North Korean rockets. This then was the setting for the debate within the House committee on the 16th of June.
The new ranking member of the Committee, Howard McKeon of California, started off the debate:
“Considering the threat that exists, it’s ludicrous to me that we would cut funding for critical national defense capabilities. Iran and North Korea both have demonstrated the capability and intent to pursue intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear weapon programs in the last year. It’s critical for the United States to provide a comprehensive missile defense system that protects the U.S. homeland, as well as our forward-deployed troops and allies. Are we so confident in our diplomatic efforts with Iran and North Korea that we can afford a nearly 90 percent cut in European Missile Defense and a 35 percent cut to our homeland missile defenses in Alaska and California?”
The ranking member remarks were echoed by the senior minority member of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee as well. Michael Turner of Ohio explained:
“With near-term and increasing threats from rogue nations such as North Korea and Iran, the need is greater than ever to strengthen America’s national missile defense programs. This is essential to protect our homeland and forward-deployed troops and allies. Now is not the time to play politics with our nation’s missile defense programs. I was disappointed that the majority would not even agree to my amendment to restore a modest level of funding to missile defense. Given the increasing threat and uncertainty surrounding the intent from North Korea and Iran, a policy that reduces defense of our homeland is unwise and unacceptable.”
One of the more tireless supporters of missile defense on the Committee, Trent Franks of Arizona, a founding member of the Missile Defense Caucus, and also a member of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee, warned of the consequences of failing to fully fund this critical area of defense hardware:
"There has never been a time in history when the convergence of ballistic missile proliferation, nuclear weapons programs, and jihadist terrorism so imminently threatened the peace of the entire human family. America faces a growing threat in the rising belligerence, instability, and technological advancements of rogue nations like North Korea and Iran. Both have made their resolute commitment to a long-range missile and nuclear capability, their hatred of the United States, and their hostility toward our allies unmistakably clear.
“In the face of such realities, Democrats once again rejected valuable amendments today that would have restored the critical funding needed for a robust ballistic missile defense against these very real threats; and in so doing they have shown an unbelievably dangerous disregard for reality, reducing our ability to respond to increasingly complex and growing threats and making us more vulnerable to ballistic missile attacks. Such short-lived, so-called political victories have no place in the public forum when they hold such potentially grave consequences for America's national security.”
One would have thought that such arguments would have carried the day. But they did not. As noted earlier, many critics of missile defense remain “prisoners of history,” unfortunately still stuck in a Cold War mindset that has not changed much since the near abandonment by the U.S. of missile defenses some 40 years ago at the height of the Cold War with the adoption of the ABM Treaty. Under the spell of such an “intellectual virus,” the deployment of missile defenses against long range missile threats simply becomes a “bridge too far.”
At the time, the Johnson administration had left on the table a proposal to deploy missile defense interceptors to deal with what at the time was described as a “light Chinese threat.” Former Sen. George McGovern was one of the leading opponents of such a system, complaining in a speech that Americans did not “want bombs in their back yards,” an allusion to a number of cartoons appearing at the time showing American cities bristling with deployed missile interceptors armed with nuclear explosive devices.
The U.S. deployment was eventually approved by a vote cast by the then Vice President of the United States Spiro Agnew, breaking a 50-50 vote in the U.S. Senate. The ABM Treaty, signed by the U.S. and the Soviet Union in 1972, permanently limited interceptors to 100, and they could be deployed around our nation’s capital or to protect an offensive land-based ballistic missile site. The US opted to deploy a “Safeguard” system in Grand Forks, North Dakota, consisting of 100 interceptors. The Soviet Union deployed 100 nuclear armed interceptors around Moscow, a system which has recently undergone its fourth generation modernization.
The reason for this history is important. The opponents of missile defense argued that with robust American defenses, the Soviet Union would be unsure whether it could continue to hold at risk American nuclear forces, industry and cities and thus “deterrence would be undermined.” The thinking was that in such a situation, limits on offensive nuclear weapons deployments would not be possible. With the signing of the ABM Treaty in 1972, the Nixon administration also signed the SALT Treaty with the Soviet Union that channeled the future growth of both nations’ offensive weapons. A further treaty, SALT II, was concluded in 1979 under the Carter administration but was withdrawn from Senate consideration after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. But the catechism of the arms control “priesthood,” of limited defenses and bounded but very large offensive forces, seemed to be the wisdom of the day. In that light, the ABM Treaty was continually described as the “cornerstone of strategic stability.”
However, the two SALT treaties allowed offensive nuclear weapons to grow to between 10-12,000 deployed weapons. With the Soviets, however, their deployment of large, multi-warhead land based missile launchers allowed them to potentially deploy many additional thousands of such “fast flyer warheads”. This compared to the US deployment of Minuteman which could deploy a maximum of 2000 warheads given their limited “throw-weight”, or the capability to deploy multiple warheads on one missile.
President Reagan rectified this imbalance through a robust modernization of America’s strategic nuclear arsenal, most of which had been delayed by the Carter administration. The Senate had repeatedly killed the B1 bomber; the Trident submarine and missiles were slowed or markedly curtailed; and a new land based missile – the MX, (later known as the Peacekeeper) – could not find sufficient Congressional support to go into production.
And the deployment of Pershings and GLCMs, (Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces or INF), by the United States to counter Soviet SS-20s, had never received the production and deployment funds necessary to carry out the two-track option adopted by NATO in the 1970s – negotiate a reduction or elimination of both sides missiles while at the same time proceeding with deployment if no agreement appeared forthcoming.
By 1983, however, the Reagan administration had begun production of the B1. The Peacekeeper was also finally in production. The submarine Trident D-5 missiles were beginning serious development toward deployment as was the B2 bomber. The INF Pershing and GLCM missile deployments were approved, and basing in England, Germany, Italy and Holland proceeded. Coupled with this modernization were three additional elements: U.S. arms control proposals to reduce deployed strategic nuclear offensive missile warheads by 50 percent; a companion U.S. proposal to eliminate all deployed INF missiles; and the first serious U.S. research and development program for missile defenses since the Safeguard system was mothballed.
Reagan and the first President Bush succeeded in dramatically slashing nuclear arsenals. The 1991 START I treaty cut strategic arsenals roughly in half. Reagan eliminated in 1987 some 1,500+ Soviet nuclear warheads on top of SS-20 missiles deployed in Eastern Europe and Asia in the INF Treaty. Both treaties largely mirrored the original U.S. proposals due in large part to the leverage provided by both the strategic modernization plan and missile defense research and development. This in turn helped set the stage for the end of the Soviet Union and with it the end of the Cold War.
President Reagan’s extraordinary success in cutting nuclear arsenals, while modernizing our own remaining nuclear and conventional deterrent, helped defeat the Soviet Union. His success turned conventional arms control wisdom on its head. Even more insulting to the so-called “arms control” priesthood was that their push for a nuclear freeze in the early 1980s, when the Soviets massive nuclear modernization efforts were nearing completion and the U.S. programs were just beginning, was thrown back in their faces. While they wanted to freeze both nations at between 10-12,000 deployed strategic weapons, Reagan said no, we are going to cut such weapons in half, modernize at the same time, and begin the long road toward deploying an insurance policy of ballistic missile interceptors known as the Strategic Defense Initiative.
George Bush continued this endeavor by withdrawing the U.S. from the ABM Treaty in 2002 while also signing an agreement with the Russians cutting deployed nuclear weapon arsenals by an additional 65%, to 2200, a number the US. .has now reached some three years ahead of the agreements deadline of 2012, an agreement known by its acronym SORT, (Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty). This was done while withdrawing from the ABM Treaty, as we noted, which befuddled the arms control denizens who had assured Americans all during this period that it would be impossible for the Bush administration to simultaneously reduce nuclear weapons and build missile defenses.
That then brings us back to our present strategic situation. The North Korean government launched dozens of rockets recently including a rocket which failed some time after the third stage fired after having travelled some 4,000 kilometers. According to the former director of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, if all stages had worked properly, the rocket had the capability of deploying a 650 kilogram warhead on Indiana and a 500 kilogram warhead on Florida. At the same time, Pyongyang exploded what apparently was another nuclear weapon with a yield of some small number of kilotons.
On the other side of the globe, the Iranian mullahs were demonstrating an even greater offensive missile capability. According to expert sources, Tehran demonstrated they had gone far beyond the Scud rocket technology they originally possessed. They are building multi-stage rockets with a solid fuel capability, just as dangerous as the initial missiles deployed by the United States and the former Soviet Union in the late 1950s and early 1960s. According to Uzi Rubin, the father of the Israel Arrow ballistic missile defense systems, the Iranians have now demonstrated a capability to build missiles with “global reach.” In short, the rocket capabilities of our adversaries have gone far beyond the quaint notion that Iranian and North Korean engineers are doing little more than engaging in a “science project.” In addition, though still unclear, the Iranians are seeking to develop and probably deploy nuclear weapons which when added to their missile capability will demonstrate a serious strategic threat to the United States and its allies.
Why, then, would the House Armed Services Committee turn down efforts to restore missile defense funds to meet these threats? Part of the explanation is a residual knee-jerk dislike of missile defense because it upsets the arms control catechism that still has within its grasp many members of Congress. Although the Secretary of Defense, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the new Director of the Missile Defense Agency have all – quite correctly – said the current missile defense deployments in Alaska and California “work” against the North Korean threat, there remains a coterie of missile defense opponents who continue to claim the system cannot work, that North Korea or Iran will simply deploy more missiles than we have interceptors or countermeasures we cannot defeat. [Congressman Rush Holt once went so far as to say that “no missile defenses are better than any missile defenses.”]
At bottom, such a view of strategic relations places North Korea and Iran on a parallel moral footing as the United States and its allies. Does North Korea want to intimidate the Republic of Korea and Japan with its ballistic missiles? Of course. Does North Korea hope to prevent the United States from coming to the defense of the ROK in the event the North decides to invade? Of course. Does the deployment of U.S. and allied missile defenses protect against these strategies? Of course it does. But in this formulation, North Korea has just as much right to keep the U.S. from protecting the ROK as we have to come to its[the ROK] defense. This “moral equivalency” thus makes it increasingly difficult for the U.S. to protect its allies with missile defenses.
Critics of missile defense also assert a known “return address” guarantees that no one is going to launch a rocket at the U.S. This is a variant of deterrence theory but begs the question of why such countries are deploying offensive ballistic missiles in the first place. Critics reply that North Korea and Iran are simply “deterring the United States.” When you ask what they are deterring the U.S. from doing, they further reply that they are preventing the U.S. from attacking. When one further asks why the U.S. would attack North Korea or Iran, one is told “well over South Korea” in the case of Pyongyang, or “over Israel” in the case of Iran.
Such “fortune cookie” thoughts seem at first glance to be sophisticated. But they are actually quite foolish. North Korea and Iran are deploying such missiles to use for coercion, blackmail and terror. They are not protecting their neighbors or allies. With ballistic missiles of global reach, or even shorter range missiles capable of holding key targets in Europe and the Middle East at risk, in the case of Iran, or targets in East Asia in the case of North Korea, these two state sponsors of terror seek to achieve “top cover” for their dangerous policies.
For Iran, this means exporting their totalitarian Khomeinist revolution and attempting to destroy the nascent democracies in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon. It means seeking to overthrow the governments of Morocco, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, while being the key military, financial and arms backer of terror groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah. The Iranian deployed missiles, which they have made no attempt to hide, are also a reminder to our European NATO allies that adopting serious sanctions against Iran may not be in the cards given the correlation of forces represented by Iran’s missiles and its still opaque nuclear weapons program.
What is most interesting is that missile defense critics do not apply the “return address” excuse to shorter and medium range ballistic missile threats. Hamas and Hezbollah regularly attack Israel with rockets, all of which have a known address. Saddam Hussein attacked Iran, Israel and U.S. forces with missiles, all of which had a home address. And Iran attacked Iraq with ballistic missiles despite Saddam having chemical weapons with which to retaliate.
And even if a “home address” might be a deterrent to some, the captain of a rogue freighter-launched missile off the coast of the United States attempting to create an EMP blast high above the atmosphere might not care. For certainly the “Jihadis” or terrorists launching the missile may be happy indeed to permanently visit Davy Jones’ locker and get a head start on those “72 virgins” reserved for martyrs.
North Korea follows the same pattern. It has used its ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons programs to threaten the U.S. and its regional allies, while demanding ransom payments. It continues to provide military assistance to Syria, Iran and terror groups. The Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, as well as President Obama, has correctly said the U.S. will no longer play the game of trying to buy “good” North Korean behavior. As the Defense Secretary said recently “we will not buy that pony again” from North Korea, a reference to repeated times in which the U.S. supplies Pyongyang with tons of fuel and food assistance in the hopes the rogue regime will cease its military provocations.
Part of the effort within the House Armed Services Committee was to restore funding for missile defense systems such as KEI, the Kinetic Energy Interceptor and the ABL, the Airborne Laser, which are designed to shoot down ballistic missiles early in their flight, in what is known as the boost or early ascent phase prior to when warheads separate from the missile and decoys and counter measures are deployed. Such technologies if deployed would disarm critics who claim a mid-course intercept capability as we now have in Alaska cannot effectively deal with such counters.
While some “arms control” opponents of missile defense have suggested that such boost phase deployments are the key to protecting the U.S. against Iranian and North Korean launches, there is little evidence of any effort to urge Congress to follow-up on such programs. As Congressman Doug Lamborn from Colorado Springs explained “These are essential to a robust, layered ballistic missile defense system for not just theater-based defense, but for homeland defense. While still in the research and development phase, we should continue these programs to ensure we have cutting edge defense capabilities for now and in the future. ”
To the administrations credit, however, they have added $900 million to the Navy based Aegis SM3 and land-based THAAD, Terminal High Altitude Air Defense. But these systems currently defend against short and medium range ballistic missiles and not longer range missiles launched from Iran towards Central and Northern Europe and the United States and from North Korea toward the U.S. mainland. (The current North Korean capability does threaten Hawaii and Alaska).
But once the missile threats from Tehran and Pyongyang fully materialize, it may be too late to deploy a robust defense. This requires anticipation and advance preparation. As LTG Patrick O’Reilly, the director of the Missile Defense Agency pointed out in two recent speeches, the US is on pace to deploy at least some 1,000 interceptors worldwide by the end of this decade, an extraordinary achievement. But we have only 30 interceptors capable of destroying long range missile strikes and thus there was a proposal to deploy 44 such interceptors in the HASC mark-up as a means of getting the US back to the previous planned arsenal.
But whether the Alaskan and Californian-based missile defense interceptors number 30 or 44, we need to continue two additional elements: a robust test program and sufficient upgrades to deal with an expanding future threat. As LTG Patrick O’Reilly has noted recently, the U.S. will have to defend itself with additions to such a global and layered defense as we now have. This is one of the reasons for a markedly expanded testing regime for missile defense contained in the budget proposals approved by the HASC this week.
But Central Europe still remains undefended, and the East Coast of the United States needs additional protection from an Iranian missile threat that looms on the horizon. The head of Israel’s Mossad, Meir Dagan, says Iran will have a nuclear weapon “ready for use by 2014.” Deployments of an improved standard missile interceptor aboard Aegis ships or on land, even in conjunction with both a Polish and Czech land-based interceptor and radar, along with some elements involving Russian cooperation, will take at least that long even if started in a robust fashion today. Attempts to add funding for some elements of a European-based missile defense also failed in the Committee.
One member of the Committee from Utah, Congressman Bishop summed up the frustration of missile defense supporters when he explained:
“It is troubling that in the face of provocative missile tests being performed by North Korea, the administration and their allies in Congress would seek to cut funding for our missile defense. The development of a missile defense has been and should continue to be a vital part of the strategic cards we hold. When we diminish that capability, we unilaterally raise the threat of long-range missiles to our nation and to our allies. Anyone can watch the nightly news to realize we face real, urgent, missile-based threats from around the world. These aren’t hypothetical or projected threats. These are real threats to our safety and security today, and cutting missile defense right now in light of these threats makes no sense at all…The investments we make in missile defense today ensure our homeland security against these threats now and a decade from now.”
The U.S. and its allies have no wish to be ensnared in a “mutual assured destruction pact” with either North Korea or Iran. To rely on deterrence and thus the rationality of such regimes is fraught with danger. Americans want to be defended and we should not have to twist ourselves into pretzels to do so. Specifically, three additional elements to missile defense are missing to a degree and need to be fully funded: (1) A defense of the European and Mideast theater that also protects the eastern United States; (2) A boost or ascent phase capability against rockets from Iran or North Korea; and (3) The capability to protect against rockets launched from off-shore freighters designed to produce an EMP, Electro-Magnetic Pulse, that could push the U.S. industrial society back to the beginning of the 19th century.
American ingenuity can deal with all these threats. Coupled with sound diplomacy, deterrence, divestment, interdiction, arms control and homeland protection, the United States and its allies can make missile defense a genuine partner in all the tools we have to protect our people. Armed with nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, Pyongyang and Tehran pose critical dangers to the U.S. and its allies. It is our job to “provide for the common defense.” We are doing that job today. But we have more to do. As my friend Michael Ledeen often writes: “Faster, please.”
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Peter Huessy is President of GeoStrategic Analysis, a defense consulting company in Potomac, Maryland.
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