Clinton Dare Not Gut Funding for Sea-Based Missile Defenses in Light of Strong Senate Support for the ‘AEGIS Option’

(Washington, D.C.): Clinton Administration officials intent on slashing the budget for the
Navy’s sea-based missile defense program were put on notice earlier this week sixteen of the
Senate’s most influential voices on defense policy. In a letter to Secretary of Defense William
Cohen (see the attached), virtually the entire Senate
Republican leadership, along among
highly respected legislators, ¹ warned that the Congress
would oppose efforts to rob the
Navy Theater Wide (NTW) program to pay for the Army’s Theater High Altitude Area
Defense (THAAD) system on strategic and legal grounds.

In particular, the authors observed that cancellation or significant reduction of the NTW
program
not make strategic sense, given the proliferation of medium-range ballistic missiles. It
would
also violate portions of the FY 2000 Defense Authorization Act. ²

Highlights of the letter include the following passages (emphasis added):

…Neither of these programs should be delayed by funding
limitations. In
testimony to the Senate, Army, Navy, and Defense Department officials have
repeatedly made it clear that valid requirements exist for both systems, which
perform
different missions. Congress has also been strongly supportive of the Navy Theater
Wide and THAAD programs, and opposed a recent Administration proposal to adopt a
strategy that would advance one program at the expense of the other….

We strongly urge you to ensure adequate funding for both the Navy
Theater Wide and THAAD programs, such that their deployment is
constrained only by the pace of their technological developments.

Candidate McCain Endorses Sea-Based Missile Defenses

The following day, while receiving the Intrepid Freedom Award aboard the U.S.S. Intrepid
Museum, another leading Republican presidential candidate ³ — Senator John McCain (R-AZ)
— affirmed his strong support for the Navy’s anti-missile program:

We must move ahead with the several promising options for theater missile defense
now under development, including the improved Patriot on land and the Navy Area
Defense System at sea; and to develop programs that will provide for broader
regional coverage, such as the Navy’s proposed Theater Wide system. We need an
ability to project a missile defense shield to the world’s most dangerous hot spots
whether they be in the Taiwan straits; or off the Korean peninsula; or elsewhere like
the Middle East where the security of friends and regional stability could be
threatened. Most importantly, of course, we must defend the United States itself from
ballistic missile attack.”

The Bottom Line

Clearly, given the growing political support for the AEGIS Option, the United
States will have
a sea-based ballistic missile defense system. The only question is: Will we
have it before we
need it — or after?

¹ The signatories on the 6 December letter to Secretary Cohen were:
Jon Kyl, Thad Cochran,
Trent Lott, Larry Craig, Paul Coverdell, Wayne Allard, Mitch McConnell, Frank Murkowski,
James Inhofe, Jim Bunning, John McCain, Spencer Abraham, Bob Smith, Phil Gramm, Don
Nickles and Tim Hutchinson

²See the Center’s Decision Brief entitled
Will Clinton-Gore Get Away with Killing the Most
Promising Near-term Missile Defense System — The AEGIS Option? ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=99-D_138″>No. 99-D 138, 1
December 1999).

³ See The Emerging G.O.P. Alternative on Missile
Defense — Exercising the ‘AEGIS Option’
(No. 99-D 135, 18 November 1999).