Much Ado About Not Much? N.Y. Times’ Latest Salvo in Attack on Missile Defense Seems Irrelevant to Present Program

(Washington, D.C.): For years, the New York Times has given substantial copy and prime editorial space to what can only be described as a deliberate, concerted effort to erode public confidence in and otherwise to subvert developmental programs aimed at defending America against missile attack. The latest installment in this campaign appeared yesterday in an “above-the-fold,” front-page article trumpeting the complaints of a former employee of a defense contractor responsible in the mid-1990s for perfecting critical sensor and discrimination technology for an anti-missile defense system.

What We Don’t Know

If true, the reported charges would implicate personnel then employed by TRW Inc. in fraud: They allegedly failed to achieve required results in developing a “kill vehicle” for the Clinton Administration’s ground-based national missile defense program, and then misrepresented their actual results so as to conceal that failure from program managers.

The Times notes, however, that the company has “vigorously denied” these charges and the Defense Department has not confirmed them. Significantly, the Department of Justice declined to join the scientist, Dr. Nira Schwartz, in her law-suit seeking to recover half a billion dollars she contends have been improperly billed to it by TRW. Dr. Schwartz also reportedly hopes to receive some portion of any award in damages for her dismissal allegedly in retribution for her “whistle-blowing” about the company’s technical problems and conduct.

What We Do Know

On the basis of presently available information, it is impossible to evaluate the validity, if any, of these charges. In light, however, of the likely upshot, if not actually the transparent purpose, of the Times’ latest salvo — namely, discrediting the U.S. missile defense programs and feeding claims that the technology for confidently providing hit-to-kill intercepts of ballistic missiles remains out of reach — several points buried in (or overlooked by) yesterday’s article bear emphasis:

• The TRW system in whose development Dr. Schwartz participated is not being utilized in the current National Missile Defense program.
• TRW’s entry in a competition for the NMD kill vehicle was rejected in favor of an alternative, using different technology, being built by Hughes (now a subsidiary of Raytheon Corporation).
• TRW’s so-called Kalman Feature Extractor that Dr. Schwartz claimed was defective was not utilized in the warhead version submitted for the competition. An alternative “baseline algorithm” approach developed by TRW that does not appear to have the sorts of problems said to be associated with the “extractor” is being preserved as a back-up in case the Raytheon kill vehicle ultimately proves unworkable.
• The Raytheon kill vehicle did successfully intercept a mock warhead last October, discriminating between decoys and the target and destroying the latter after briefly locking onto one of the former.
• During a second flight test in January, the Raytheon kill vehicle missed the target by 100 feet because two “end-game” sensors both experienced mechanical failures. This problem, while regrettable, in no way suggests that successful discrimination and hit-to-kill intercepts are either unachievable or beyond the reach of the technology now being developed for national missile defense.

Like every other defense program — and, for that matter, any other government activity — responsible officials and their contractors must be held to the highest standards of integrity and technical performance when it comes to what is, arguably, one of the Nation’s most important initiatives: the effort to defend the American people against ballistic missile attack. Like every other citizen under the U.S. Constitution, though, those in such positions must be presumed innocent of charges of mis- or malfeasance until proven guilty. TRW and officials responsible for supervising its work are entitled to their day in court and — pending that opportunity — should be afforded as fulsome a chance as Dr. Schwartz to address the facts of the case, both in the New York Times and elsewhere (recognizing that, as defendants in Dr. Schwartz’s litigation, they face certain constraints in what they can say).

Is No Defense Better than Some?

The increasingly well-organized and -funded campaign to thwart the deployment of national missile defenses — including, but not limited to, challenges to its technological feasibility (a front where the New York Times agitates most aggressively) — compels the American people to address a fundamental question: Would they prefer to remain defenseless in the face of growing, and increasingly overt¹ threatsof missile attack on the United States? Or would they favor having a limited defense, even of uncertain effectiveness that will, at a minimum, introduce into the minds of prospective adversaries uncertainty as to whether their missile attacks will succeed in killing Americans?

The deployment of untested Patriot missiles to the Middle East during Operation Desert Shield is a powerful reminder of the political and strategic benefits (e.g., the improved morale of U.S. troops and allies within range of Saddam Hussein’s Scuds — so much so in the case of Israel that Washington succeeded in persuading the Jewish State not to enter the war) that can accrue from such a step, even if its practical military benefits cannot be precisely calculated. It seems reasonable to expect that, in today’s world, the deployment of near-term global missile defenses will prove at least as valuable to the American people and their forces and allies overseas.

The Bottom Line

Notwithstanding the best efforts of the opponents of U.S. anti-missile defenses, the question is no longer one of will the United States will deploy defenses against ballistic missile attack. Rather, it is: Will the United States deploy such defenses before it needs them, or after?

If America — or someplace elsewhere that we care about — is attacked by a missile-borne weapon of mass destruction, there will no longer be much interest in debating the technical feasibility or cost or compatibility with arms control treaties of near-term defensive options. At that point, the Nation will move as one to deploy what it can, as quickly as it can, imperfections and all.

Given the infrastructure for such a near-term missile defense system already in place in the Navy’s 55-ship AEGIS fleet air defense system, a global sea-based approach is likely to be the way we will get started.² That being the case, why would we not do so now, perhaps preventing such a catastrophe from occurring in the first place?

¹For example, the threat issued by Communist China to wage nuclear war against the United States over Taiwan. See the Center’s Security Forum entitled ‘This is no Drill’: China’s Latest Threat to Attack America Demands Urgent Deployment of Missile Defenses, Other Actions (No. 00-F 12, 29 February 2000).

²On 15 March, the Pentagon is expected to deliver to Congress the latest in a series of reports affirming the feasibility of using Aegis assets as adjuncts to ground-based defenses in a layered national anti-missile system. For additional information on what such a near-term, “gap-filling” sea-based system would entail and cost, see The Heritage Foundation’s study entitled Defending America. This study can be accessed via the world wide web at (www.heritage.org/missile_defense/).