Let’s be honest. Wednesday’s successful intercept of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) heading towards the U.S. was a major step forward for the National Missile Defense Program, a real technological and operational achievement.
After a testing hiatus of some three years, the test went off on time, and the system worked by intercepting a realistic target, one reported to have dispensed countermeasures. This is progress. The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is hopeful that with the planned additions of new or upgraded radars and the procurement of new interceptors with advanced kill vehicles, the National Missile Defense Program will be able to interpose a credible defensive shield between this country and North Korean ICBMs.
But the very success of the latest test highlights two long-standing problems with the U.S. approach to missile defense. The first is the slow pace of progress in the overall program. This is a function of a number of factors. One is clearly resources. The MDA is being asked to pursue too many technologies and support too many programs for the funding levels available over the past eight years. If the Trump Administration is serious about defending the nation, a 50 percent addition to the missile defense budget is in order.
Money problems also may have forced MDA to make suboptimal decisions on several programs. For example, MDA proposes to locate its new long-range discrimination radar to the Alaskan mainland rather than out on the Aleutian Islands where it could see further in the direction of North Korea and cover a critical gap in the surveillance network over the likeliest North Korean ICBM trajectories. Their reason for this appears to be the additional difficulties and costs associated with large infrastructure projects on the islands.
Another example is the defense of Hawaii. There are simple things that could be done very soon to give the Hawaiian Islands a dedicated missile defense capability. But there is concern in some quarters that the money for these initiatives would come out of the budget for the National Missile Defense system, particularly the large radar programs or the acquisition of additional Ground-Based Interceptors.
Another factor slowing down the pace of missile defense developments is MDA’s anomalous role as both a research and development (R&D) activity and a de-facto program office. The MDA is doing things that are way out of the lane for other R&D organizations such as building large land- and sea-based radars and procuring the interceptors employed by the military. It also doesn’t help that the agency’s political and military masters come around every few years to announce yet another new strategy and another reorganization of missile defenses which require, in turn, changes in programs.
The second major problem, highlighted by the latest test, is a reluctance in some parts of the government and military to accept the idea that defenses need to become a core, integrated capability of the U.S. Armed Forces. It was the acquisition by neighboring Arab states of long-range ballistic missiles in the 1980s in addition to Hezbollah’s launch of some 6,000 short-range rockets into Israel during the 2006 war in Lebanon that finally focused the Israeli Defense Forces on the need for comprehensive missile defenses. Deterrence and offensive actions alone were insufficient to defend Israel. The result was a commitment to a layered missile defense and an integrated offense-defense strategy for defeating adversaries armed with large numbers of rockets and ballistic missiles.
Perhaps part of the problem is the sense in some quarters that missile defenses cede too much initiative to the adversary and offensive measures, and that taking out missile threats prior to launch is a better idea. This is old thinking. Defensive capabilities can have a decidedly offensive impact. Look at the Egyptian-Russian air defense network along the Suez Canal prior to the 1973 war and its implications for Egyptian and Israeli operations. Or the current Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) challenges posed by Russian forces in Kaliningrad and Chinese weapons on the newly created islands in the South China Sea.
Early in the efforts to pursue Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, defense planners recognized the tremendous advantage that a layered system could provide. An early defensive layer, preferably in boost or post-boost phase could disrupt the structure of an incoming attack so that some targets would receive fewer or even no warheads.
A second layer, operating closer to the missile’s target in the midcourse or terminal phases of the missile’s flight, could be employed preferentially to protect the most valuable targets while ignoring those that were not going to be hit due to the operation of the first defensive layer. It is the defender’s choice whether to protect military targets, leading to a more severe retaliatory strike on an aggressor, or protect value targets, recognizing that this would mean fewer weapons sent against the aggressor. But this decision is solely in the hands of the defender.
U.S. adversaries are competing with the U.S. military and its allies on two fronts. They are countering U.S. advantages through the deployment of A2/AD capabilities. They also are deploying increasingly modern and lethal offensive systems, particularly ballistic and cruise missiles.
The U.S. has been focusing predominantly on enhancing our offensive to counter the improvements in adversaries’ defenses. This is half the right answer. The other half is to invest also in defenses to counter their growing offensive might. The U.S. Army has belatedly recognized this problem and is working both to reacquire its erstwhile tactical air defense capability and simultaneously to deploy long-range fire systems that can attrite enemy A2/AD systems. The U.S. Navy is expanding the number of surface combatants equipped with the Aegis ballistic missile defense system. But there is not a national vision or coordinated strategy to provide the U.S. military with a true one-two punch of effective defense and lethal offense.
The new Ballistic Missile Defense Review could do the nation a service by articulating a vision for U.S. missile defenses and pressing the Department of Defense to develop an overall approach to the mission that enhances the opportunities for integration across services and defensive layers.
Daniel Gouré, Ph.D., is a vice president at the public-policy research think tank Lexington Institute. Goure has a background in the public sector and U.S. federal government, most recently serving as a member of the 2001 Department of Defense Transition Team.
