Validation of the Aegis Option: Successful Test is First Step From Promising Concept To Global Anti-Missile Capability

(Washington, D.C.): Last week, the
United States made an important advance
in the quest to provide the American
people, their allies and troops overseas
with protection from the growing danger
of ballistic missile attack. On 24
January, the United States Navy
successfully shot down an incoming
ballistic missile over the White Sands
Missile Range in New Mexico. In so doing,
it offered the first tangible
validation of the single most promising,
near-term and affordable option for
defending world-wide against theater and
national ballistic missile threats.

A Proven, If Rudimentary
Missile-Killer

The test used a modified Standard
Missile 2 Block IV (SM2 Blk IV)
interceptor missile to destroy an
incoming Lance theater ballistic missile.
The SM2 Blk IV is an anti-aircraft
missile currently in the inventory and
widely deployed aboard the Navy’s large
and growing fleet of AEGIS cruisers and
destroyers. The United States has
invested nearly $50 billion in these
assets which presently provide robust
air-defense for carrier battle groups and
other naval and Marine combat elements. This
investment represents the vast
preponderance of the infrastructure
required for global anti-missile
defenses.

Indeed, although the AEGIS ships’
radars are far from optimized for
tracking ballistic missiles in flight,
they have already demonstrated the
ability to do so. As the Navy noted in a
24 January press release announcing the
successful Lance missile intercept, one
of the oldest AEGIS cruisers — the USS
Bunker Hill — was on station near
the Taiwan Strait last year during
China’s provocative and intimidating
series of ballistic missile shots aimed
just offshore the two main Taiwanese
ports. The ship’s radar was able to
“record each missile flight in
detail.” Regrettably, however, the Bunker
Hill did “not have a missile
on-board capable of intercepting the
threat.”

Last week’s test demonstrates clearly
that American commanders need no
longer be put in the absurd and
strategically dangerous position of
having the capacity to detect and track
enemy ballistic missiles —
whether they are aimed at U.S. troops,
allies or population centers — but
no capability to shoot such missiles
down. Of course, it will be
necessary further to evolve the Navy’s
interceptors and their guidance and
kill-vehicles in order to counter more
formidable ballistic missiles than the
relatively slow-flying and short-range
Lance. Still, it is now evident
that the only real obstacle to providing
competent, affordable protection from
missile attack is the political will
to do so.

What the AEGIS Test Also
Demonstrated

The success of this first test of the
AEGIS option highlights two other points:

• It adds new urgency to
  the need for the Clinton
  Administration to abide by
  provisions of the 1996 Defense
  authorization bill which
  set out specific funding and
  testing milestones for the Navy’s
  ballistic missile defense program
  and for the Army’s Theater High
  Altitude Area Defense (THAAD)
  program. The administration has
  refused to implement this law —
  compelling 41 Members of Congress
  to seek redress in the federal
  courts. Given the clear promise
  of the Navy system, it is
  imperative that the Congress
  compel the Administration to
  comply with the law.
  Should the second-term Clinton
  national security team prove as
  obdurate on this point as was its
  predecessor, the case brought
  before Judge Stanley Sporkin last
  year would clearly become ripe
  for judicial intervention;
  efforts to obtain such
  intervention should be promptly
  renewed.
• It powerfully reinforces
  the case for emphasizing the
  sea-based option for defending the
  American theater — as well
  as those overseas — in any
  Congressional missile
  defense-related initiatives in
  the coming legislative year.

The Bottom Line

Now that the Navy’s capability to
detect, track and intercept
incoming ballistic missiles has been
demonstrated, there is no longer any
excuse for the Clinton Administration’s
policy of leaving the American people and
their allies and troops overseas
vulnerable to ballistic missile attack.
Members of Congress must honor their
oaths to uphold the constitutional
obligation to provide for the common
defense by swiftly completing development
and putting to sea at the earliest
possible moment effective anti-missile
defenses.

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