Only the Clinton Team Could Respond to North Korean, Other Emerging Missile Threats by Canceling Near-Term T.H.A.A.D.
(Washington, D.C.): The Clinton Administration is reportedly poised to unveil its first
substantive
response(1) to Sunday’s demonstration by North Korea of its
ability to attack U.S. forces and
bases and allied population centers through out much of Northeast Asia: It is
considering
canceling the Army’s most mature, ground-based theater missile defense program, the
Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system.
inappropriate, so ill-advised and so likely to translate into both the loss of American lives and
increased costs to the taxpayer, this absurd proposal would be hysterical.
Yesterday’s edition of Inside Missile Defense and today’s Washington
Post carry reports that the
Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition & Technology, Jacques
Gansler, and officials in
the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO) are considering various
options — including
the cancellation or restructuring of the THAAD program on the grounds that it has had, for a
variety of reasons, a succession of test problems. The truth of the matter is that the
appropriate response to these problems would be to increase funding for THAAD, so
as to
permit it to do what development programs are supposed to, namely to find and fix
reliability problems.
The Real Root of the Problem
Unfortunately, because the THAAD program — like all U.S. missile defense programs —
labors
under the garrotting effects of a treaty that the Clinton Administration has interpreted effectively
to preclude any anti-missile system worthy of the name, it is practically impossible to develop or
test it in a way that will produce reliable hardware. The insights of Lieutenant General
James
Abrahamson (USAF, Ret.), the founding Director of the Strategic Defense Initiative
under
President Reagan, are instructive:
- “The problem with moving into a real ballistic missile defense system has not been
technology. It’s really been the restraints that have been put on the program. And most
of those flow from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the desire to keep that treaty
intact.”
- “The reason that the restraints caused by the ABM Treaty affect the program in a very
negative way is because you can never go beyond just an early research kind of activity.
Essentially, you’re closing off the ability, you’re dumbing down, you’re doing whatever
you
would like to call it, but you’re closing down the ability to go in and refine the systems.
And the refining is part of really getting ready to deploy. And therefore you never
achieve
the reliability you would like. Some of the failures we have seen are not because we
couldn’t do the job but because we haven’t been allowed to create the reliability that we
really need.”
- “The dynamics of the problem of intercepting a warhead, we demonstrated. We did that in
the
very days of the [SDI] program. We know we can build those kinds of systems….The dynamic
problem has been demonstrated; we can do the job. The part that’s so discouraging to
me is
that we would have been ready to do real development and move into a production
program for deployment of a system years ago, but we were never allowed to take that
step.”
- “The real tragedy and the reason we could not make that last step and move into a
deployment
program is because of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. People, even though the Soviet Union
is gone and even though there has been a complete transformation for the other [signatory] on
the ABM Treaty, we have elected to keep that as some shining example of a discarded idea —
it should have been discarded long ago — that it’s somehow going to protect us. Treaties
don’t protect. They can modify behavior. That treaty did not modify the
Russians’
behavior, only ours.”
- “The tough part of the job was done early. We demonstrated [the capability to intercept
warheads] very early. The failures that THAAD has encountered have been things like a
rocket motor failure, having a wire in backwards. Those are [what] the reliability
program that needs to be put into place [would address], the reliability program that
would be associated with deploying the system. It doesn’t say anything about the lack
of
feasibility of being able to do the job. The job is not impossible. It can be done.”
The Bottom Line
In light of the substantial investment in the THAAD program to date, and the system’s
obvious
potential to overcome its reliability problems if only it is given the policy latitude — and the
resources — to do so, it would be criminal were the Administration either to send it back to
the
drawing board(4) or cancel it outright. By
reaffirming its commitment to provide competent,
ground-based theater missile defenses via the THAAD program, the Nation stands the best
chance of fielding in the near-term a capability for which the need has been urgent at least
since 1991, when 28 American troops were killed by a single Iraqi Scud missile.
A silver lining from the review of missile defense options now underway within the Pentagon
would be if the Department of Defense recognized that in addition to allowing the
THAAD
to “be all it can be,” increased budgetary and programmatic priority also needs to be
accorded to the Navy’s Theater Wide anti-missile system based upon the AEGIS fleet air
defense infrastructure. It is irresponsible to treat these two programs as zero-sum
competitors;
their different capabilities and deployment approaches offer synergy that will help deter and, if
necessary, defeat the threats now emerging from North Korea and beyond.
In addition, the Navy’s AEGIS option should be optimized so as to permit it not only
to
complement THAAD’s defense of large land areas against theater missile attack but also to
begin providing effective anti-missile protection to the American people against the
dangers
posed by the proliferation of longer-range ballistic missiles — a phenomenon the Rumsfeld
Commission, among others, has warned is intensifying.(5)
– 30 –
1. That is, beyond declaring it was a “serious development” on the
one hand but not one that
would interfere with the Administration’s ongoing appeasement of North Korea via oil and other
financial assistance.
2. See the Center’s Decision Brief entitled
Hit or Miss Tomorrow, T.H.A.A.D. Must Go
Forward (No. 98-D 81, 11 May 1998).
3. This interview is one of dozens conducted in connection with a
documentary about America’s
vulnerability to ballistic missile attack currently being prepared by the Center for Security Policy.
For more information about this important project, contact the Center. In this connection, see the
Center’s Decision Brief entitled ‘My God, The Threat is Right
Now’ (No. 98-D 155, 1
September 1998).
4. This would be the practical effect of barring the use of the seven
THAAD test articles now on
hand and/or requiring a redesign of the existing interceptor or the development of a common
missile with the Navy — all options reportedly under review at this writing.
5. See the Center’s Decision Briefs entitled
Critical Mass #2: Senator Lott, Rumsfeld
Commission Add Fresh Impetus To Case For Beginning Deployment Of Missile
Defenses
(No. 98-D 133, 15 July 1998); Wall Street Journal
Lauds Rumsfeld Commission Warning On
Missile Threat; Reiterates Call For AEGIS Option In Response (
‘The Most Important Thing’: Columnist Safire Asks Why Television Media Is
Largely
Ignoring Rumsfeld Warning? (No. 98-D 136, 20
July 1998); Validation Of The AEGIS
Option: Successful Test Is First Step From Promising Concept To Global Anti-Missile
Capability (No. 97-D 17). On the feasibility
of the AEGIS option, please see the Heritage
Foundation blue-ribbon study which can be accessed via the World Wide Web at the following
address:
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