Restructure, don’t cut, the missile defense program; focus should be on deployment of near-term anti-missile systems

(Washington, D.C.): All other things being equal, it seems likely that the next week will see a concerted effort made to eviscerate President Bush‘s first, and arguably most important, effort to provide for the defense of the American homeland: his decision to build and deploy effective means of countering ballistic missile attack. While the precise nature of the attack on the roughly $10 billion request for line-items within the purview of the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is not clear at this writing, senior Democrats on the Senate and House Armed Services Committees, Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) and Rep. John Spratt (D-SC), respectively, have made clear their intention to achieve a significant funding cut, aimed at reducing – if not blocking – the procurement of interceptors for the Ground-Based Missile Defense (GMD) System.

Senate scuttlebutt has it that Sen. Levin will try to broaden the appeal of his legislative initiative by directing that funds freed-up in this fashion be expended instead on increased force levels and improved equipment for the war in Iraq. With or without such window-dressing, though, the effect of such amendments would be as clear as it is undesirable: It will prolong, if not exacerbate, this Nation’s unacceptable vulnerability to ballistic missile attack by diverting investment from where it is needed most – the deployment of near-term missile defense systems.

Misplaced Priorities

Unfortunately, the same can be said to some extent of the MDA budget now before the Congress. That budget contemplates an investment of some $22 billion over the next fifteen years for a program currently known as Kinetic Energy Interceptor (KEI). If current expectations are correct, this project would result in a new, very large interceptor capable of high acceleration. In theory, it will be able to perform boost-phase intercepts from ground- and sea-based launch sites starting sometime between January 2010 and December 2011. The substantial investment in KEI appears likely to come almost entirely at the expense of other systems that could be deployed or substantially improved far faster.

There are legitimate technical and programmatic questions about the feasibility and utility of such an interceptor. Since it is, at the moment, still largely a paper concept (although its proponents contend that some existing technology – notably, the Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV) designed for the far-less-stressing acceleration environment of the current GMD system – will be adapted for this purpose), it is difficult to be certain of the answers to such questions as:

1) Will this interceptor actually be able to perform boost-phase intercepts against missiles that might be launched at the United States from, for example, Iran or North Korea? And, if so, what assumptions are being made about where they will be deployed and under what circumstances?

Even at this early stage of development of the Kinetic Energy Interceptor, there seems to be some hedging about its ability to perform boost-phase intercepts. This is partly due to the physical challenge of intercepting ballistic missiles during their relatively brief period of powered flight. In fact, the KEI is increasingly described as a missile that would perform intercepts during the “late ascent phase.” Some assert that it will also be able to perform mid-course and even terminal intercepts. It appears unlikely that a single missile will be able to operate competently in all these phases of a missile’s trajectory, but we probably will not know for sure unless and until the program is further along.

To a considerable degree, the usefulness of a terrestrially based interceptor for boost-phase purposes will depend on the location of its launch point relative to that of the attacking missile. This is a problem when the latter may be, for example, on Iranian or North Korean territory.

In fact, KEI program manager Terry Little, has produced a chart which notes, with considerable understatement, that a “Risk Item” is the fact that “Geo-Political Basing Constraints are a Driver of KEI Military Utility.” Just how much so is revealed by Mr. Little’s assessment that in order to secure coverage of Iranian ICBM launch sites, the U.S. would have to deploy KEI systems in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Uzbekistan. Similar coverage of North Korea would require KEI deployments in Russia. Recent experience with at least some of these countries suggests that they may prove to be unreliable, or at the very least insecure, basing countries.

Even if that were not so, it is uncertain just when such basing would occur. Would it be on a permanent basis? Or only when there is reason to believe that threatening missile launches might be imminent? If the latter, a host of further questions arise as to the circumstances, strategic and diplomatic, that would apply and their implications for timely deployment and operational readiness.

2) Could the problematic nature of these considerations be alleviated by deploying the Kinetic Energy Interceptor at sea?

While sea-basing could theoretically prove helpful in some cases, it may prove problematic in practice. For one thing, the projected size of the booster (36-inches in diameter and some 30-plus feet in length) will preclude its deployment aboard existing U.S. Navy ships. While a future cruiser could, in theory, be designed to hold this missile, such a vessel is at the moment – like the KEI – a gleam in its would-be-builders’ eyes. Another alternative, i.e., emplacing the KEI aboard sea-going barges, would presumably be a nearer-term or at least less costly option, but only if concerns about operational flexibility and security are greatly discounted.

3) To what extent does the KEI system assume the availability of time-sensitive data from satellites that are either already over-taxed and, therefore, unlikely to be available, or themselves still on the drawing boards?

This question requires access to classified information but publicly available materials, particularly on the long-delayed STSS sensor program, suggest that such assumptions are unwise.

Meanwhile, Near-Term Programs Go Wanting

At the same time as significant funds (including some $500 million in FY2005) are being directed towards a program about which such serious questions exist, other initiatives capable of resulting in the deployment of considerable – and much-needed – missile defense capability in the near-term are going wanting. In particular, the Center for Security Policy has long believed that the United States should be putting in place at the earliest possible moment sea-based anti-missile systems compatible with the Navy’s Aegis fleet-air defense system. With over 60 cruisers and destroyers Aegis-equipped, there is an obvious opportunity to provide mobile, layered defenses at sea for a fraction of the cost of other approaches.

Thanks to the highly successful development effort behind the SM-3 anti-missile missile, the Navy could – with appropriate direction and additional resources – accelerate the availability of both Aegis-based sensors and interceptors. A minimum of $150 million would be required this year to facilitate the earliest possible deployment of defenses that may be essential to defeating a threat that is already at hand: short-range Scud-class ballistic missiles that could be equipped with weapons of mass destruction and launched from one of thousands of nondescript vessels of uncertain provenance that ply America’s coastal waters every day.

Even before Messrs. Levin and Spratt start savaging the Ground-based Missile Defense program’s funding, it is short of money needed to do the sort of “spiral development” the Missile Defense Agency has repeatedly claimed was the leitmotif of its work. For instance, measures have been identified that could significantly improve the performance and sustainability of the GMD EKV and booster. They were intended to be put into place as part of an orderly evolution and upgrading of the initial deployments of GMD interceptors. Yet, these initiatives are going unfunded, as are necessary investments in spares and logistics. Such initiatives require a minimum of $300 million over and above the present GMD allocation.

The Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) is also underfunded by approximately $100 million. As a result, important development, acquisition and deployment-related activities are being delayed, seriously reducing the Nation’s ability to address what virtually everyone – Democrats and Republicans, missile defense supporters and critics, alike – agrees is one of our most pressing security shortfalls: the ability to intercept shorter- to medium-range ballistic missiles that are in hostile hands around the world.

Of particular concern, however, is the virtual elimination of work on space-based missile defenses in the present MDA budget and out-year plan. More than $5 billion that was previously planned to be allocated to such purposes was stripped out at the same time as some $4.2 billion was assigned to the KEI program.

This is especially deplorable since there is no more cost- or militarily effective way to perform boost-phase intercepts on a global basis than from space. (An interim capability provided by the Airborne Laser should be developed and validated as rapidly as technical considerations will permit.) In the absence of strong executive branch leadership on the matter, Congress has not provided the support space-based missile defenses deserve. This is a mistake that must be corrected, not compounded.

The Bottom Line

Decisions taken in the next few weeks by Congress will have a profound impact on whether the United States addresses, as it must, the missile defense piece of our homeland security needs. Legislators can helpfully make adjustments toward that end, not by cutting the Missile Defense Agency’s top-line or preventing needed fielding of Ground-based Missile Defense interceptors, but by reorienting the MDA program with a view to maximizing that and other near-term deployments.