National Missile Defense Act to Hit Senate Floor: Will the Nation be Defended, At Last?

Blue-Ribbon Heritage Commission Shows How to Do It

(Washington, D.C.): The U.S. Senate is expected to vote, perhaps as early as this afternoon,
to
proceed to action on a critical piece of bipartisan legislation — “The National Missile
Defense
Act of 1999″ (S. 257), sponsored by Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) and
Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-HI). This extraordinarily simple bill would establish
that “It is the policy of the United States to
deploy as soon as is technologically possible an effective National Missile Defense system
capable of defending the territory of the United States against limited ballistic missile
attack (whether accidental, unauthorized, or deliberate).”

Regrettably, at this writing, the prospects for getting Senate action on this legislation remain
unclear. For, during the last session of Congress, the Senate twice came to within one vote of
breaking a Democratic-led filibuster of a similar bill, S. 1873. ¹ Today the Senate is again faced
with the question that gave rise to this bill: Given the rapid proliferation of threatening
ballistic missile technology, will the U.S. be defended in time?

The Second Step

As it happens, the case for the Senate to endorse the deployment of missile defenses as
soon as
technologically possible was strengthened by the release yesterday of an important new
study by
the Heritage Foundation describing precisely: How effective national — indeed, global —
missile
defenses can be quickly and affordably put into place so as to begin to defend both the
American people and their forces and allies overseas from ballistic missile attack.

The report, entitled Defending America: A Plan to Meet the Urgent Missile
Threat, was
produced by the Foundation’s Commission on Missile Defense. ² The Commission, led by former
Director of the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization under President Bush,
Ambassador
Henry Cooper, concluded that the fastest, most efficient and most cost-effective way to
provide
the first stage of a global missile defense is by adapting the Navy’s existing $50+ billion
investment in the AEGIS fleet air-defense system to give it a ballistic missile defense capability.

The report builds upon work completed by the Heritage Foundation’s Missile Defense Study
Team (also known as “Team B”) in 1995 and 1996. ³ This
timely study makes the following
recommendations:

• “Remove the constraints on the Navy Theater Wide missile defense
  system. The U.S.
  taxpayers have invested $50 billion in the U.S. Navy’s AEGIS system; for about 5 percent
  more ($2.5 billion to $3 billion), in three to four years the Navy could deploy 650 fast, capable
  missile interceptors on 22 AEGIS cruisers already patrolling the oceans and seas, covering
  almost 70 percent of the earth’s surface. By linking, or ‘internetting,’ space-based and other
  sensors with its command-and-control system, the Navy Theater Wide (NTW) defense system
  could provide an effective global defense against most long-range ballistic missiles.”

• “Build a space-based sensor system as a companion to the Navy’s missile defense
  system.
  Space-based sensors would be needed to provide target detection and tracking data
  directly to
  the ship-borne interceptors. These data would allow the NTW system to maximize its
  potential to protect the widest possible area.”

• “Expedite the sea-based system and space-based sensor systems with streamlined
  management modeled after the successful Polaris program. If anti-missile protection
  were
  made a top national priority and enabled with streamlined management and full funding, the
  first bloc of an effective NTW system should cost less than $3 billion and could begin
  operation as early as 2003.”

• “Revive serious research and development activities for near-term boost phase
  interceptors. Comprehensive development activities should be undertaken, in the same
  streamlined management context, to provide boost-phase intercept capability as soon as
  possible.”

• “End the self-imposed restraints of the now defunct ABM Treaty. The
  United States must
  face the fact that there can be no decisive anti-missile protection for the American homeland or
  for U.S. troops and allies overseas so long as the ABM Treaty continues to be observed.”

• “Engage U.S. allies in building effective global missiles defense. U.S.
  allies could help the
  United States to achieve an effective global defense by deploying a network of defensive
  sensors and interceptors around the world.”

The Bottom Line

Thanks to the Heritage Foundation’s Commission on Missile Defense — and the extensive
work
of others upon which its impressive analysis and conclusions are based — the Senate can have
confidence that a U.S. policy to deploy effective missile defenses can be implemented in the
near-term, in a practical and cost-effective manner. In fact, there is no responsible alternative to
doing
so.

¹See the Center’s Decision Briefs entitled
Shame, Shame Redux: As Clinton Presidency Melts
Down, 41 Democrats Continue Filibuster of Bill to Defend America ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=98-D_160″>No. 98-D 160, 9
September 1998) and Shame, Shame: By One Vote, Minority of Senators
Perpetuate
America’s Vulnerability to Missile Attack (No.
98-D 84, 14 May 1998 ).

²The Commission’s current members are: Ambassador Henry
Cooper (Chairman); Lt. General
James A. Abramson (USAF, Ret.); Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.; William R. Graham; Dr. Michael Griffin;
General Charles Horner (USAF, Ret.); Hon. Fred Ikl; Sven F. Kraemer; William
Schneider;
General Bernard Schriever (USAF, Ret.); Dr. William R. Van Cleave; Malcolm Wallop; Vin
Weber; Vice Admiral J.D. Williams (USN, Ret.) The Heritage Foundations editors of the 1999
study are Dr. Kim R. Holmes, Thomas G. Moore and Janice A. Smith.

³See “Defending America: A Near- and Long-term Plan to Deploy
Missile Defenses,” The
Heritage Foundation, 1995; and “Defending America: Ending America’s Vulnerability to Ballistic
Missiles,” The Heritage Foundation, 1996.