Go Navy missile defense

With each passing day, evidence grows that two of the world's most dangerous rogue states, North Korea and Iran, will be able to equip their arsenals of ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads. The prospect that American forces, allies and interests — and ultimately the United States itself — will be at risk from attack by such weapons offers a powerful validation of President Bush's visionary and courageous determination to deploy defenses against ballistic missile-delivered threats.

Last Thursday, the U.S. Navy confirmed that the president's vision can be realized in a near-term and highly cost-effective way — from the sea. For the fifth time out of six attempts, Navy ships successfully tracked, intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile in-flight, using their existing AEGIS fleet air defense systems and a new Standard Missile, dubbed the SM-3.

Three features make this test particularly significant: For the first time, the hardware and software utilized was the operational configuration (known as AEGIS BMD 3.0) that will be installed in all other AEGIS missile defense ships. No less noteworthy: The SM-3 that shot down the target was one of the first production rounds manufactured. And the personnel in the test were the regular crew of the USS Lake Erie.

In other words, this was the "real deal." The option of complementing land-based anti-missile defenses with sea-based assets capable of both tracking ballistic missiles and destroying them in-flight is now in hand.

Whole article here, the critical concern about the continuing slashing Rumsfeld and Bush are on course to do is frankly dramatic. We need to raise a ruckus. The lack of procurement. The decommissioning of thesre relatively-new Aegis ships that could be profitably deployed instead with these new anti-missiles....it all makes NO sense.

Decision Brief No. 05-D 10 2005-02-28

Go Navy missile defense!

With each passing day, evidence grows that two of the world's most dangerous rogue states, North Korea and Iran, will be able to equip their arsenals of ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads. The prospect that American forces, allies and interests - and ultimately the United States itself - will be at risk from attack by such weapons offers a powerful validation of President Bush's visionary and courageous determination to deploy defenses against ballistic missile-delivered threats.

Missile Defense, from the Sea

Last Thursday, the United States Navy confirmed that the President's vision can be realized in a near-term and highly cost-effective way - from the sea. For the fifth time out of six attempts, Navy ships successfully tracked, intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile in-fight, using their existing AEGIS fleet air defense systems and a new Standard Missile, dubbed the SM-3.

Three features make this test particularly significant: For the first time, the hardware and software utilized was the operational configuration (known as AEGIS BMD 3.0) that will be installed in all other AEGIS missile defense ships. No less noteworthy is the fact that the SM-3 utilized to shoot down the target was one of the first of the production rounds to come off the manufacturing line. And, the personnel used to conduct the test were the regular crew of the U.S.S. Lake Erie.

In addition to the exemplary performance of the Lake Erie and her crew, Thursday's test also featured another important development. A second AEGIS ship, the USS Russell, brought to bear for the first time a new capability known as the AEGIS Ballistic Missile Signal Processor (BMSP). This S-Band radar provided real-time discrimination and classification of the target, information that considerably enhances the probability of intercept. The AEGIS BMSP holds great promise for expanding missile defense radar coverage at a fraction of the cost of other approaches.

The Enemy is Us

These achievements are all the more remarkable for another reason: The sea-based missile defense program has, for most of the past thirteen years, suffered from minimal support from the Navy's leadership and outright hostility from the Pentagon's missile defense bureaucracy. The former have tended to see this mission as a diversion of scarce resources from the other priority air- and sea-control duties for which the AEGIS ships were designed.

For the latter, sea-based anti-missile systems have generally been anathema, albeit for varying reasons. During the Clinton years, the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty was sacrosanct and even seagoing missile defenses that were incapable of stopping long-range ballistic missiles - and therefore not covered by the Treaty - were considered to be problematic. Consequently, the Navy's programs were often starved of funds.

Amazingly, things have not been much better under a George W. Bush administration that came to office determined to withdraw from the ABM Treaty and to deploy effective, global missile defenses at the earliest possible time. The Missile Defense Agency has largely been allowed to give short shrift to the development and deployment of Navy anti-missile systems, in favor of ground-based interceptors and longer-term research and development efforts.

Unfortunately, shortly before the Navy's successful test, the Ground-based Missile Defense system experienced the latest in a series of experimental setbacks. While the threat of missile attack demands that that program be brought to completion - and that such further testing and developmental work be conducted as is necessary to get there, the achievements of the sea-based missile defense program to date demands a much more assertive effort be undertaken to realize its potential.

Getting There from Here

Such an effort should involve the following components:

Accelerate procurement of SM-3 missiles. Present plans call for the deployment of just 30 such missiles by 2007, of which only a few would be the Block I interceptor successfully tested last week. The rest would be upgraded Block Ia missiles that have yet to be proven, let alone put into full-scale production. A larger buy of both could enable more ships to be missile defense-capable, affording protection to larger areas of the globe and reducing the unit costs of the interceptors.

Retain five AEGIS cruisers that are being decommissioned at a roughly the half-way point in their planned service life. These vessels can be configured to be effective anti-missile ships at a fraction of the cost of new construction.

Resuscitate a program terminated several years ago to afford the Navy's fleets protection against short-range ballistic missile attack. Scuds and similar missiles available to North Korea, Iran and China, among other potentially hostile states, demand the deployment at the earliest possible time of a capability like that of the so-called SM-2 Block IVa program.

Maximize the interoperability of U.S. sea-based missile defenses with the AEGIS ships of allied fleets - including those of Japan, Australia, Spain, Norway and South Korea. Doing so can complement America?s efforts to provide truly global protection against ballistic missile attack to our own forces, people and interests, while helping to defray the costs of such protection. The Bottom Line

Missile defenses are more required now than ever. The time has come to assign the Navy the mission and the resources necessary to provide comprehensive defenses from the sea.

Our allies are willing to go the extra mile when they know we won't turn our backs on them.

Very true. Now if only the President would stop turning his back on his PROMISES to US...

Have you seen Frank Gaffney's all-too-telling defense-budget commentary from a month plus ago?

Decision Brief No. 05-D 02 2005-01-10

John Kerry's defense budget

(Washington, D.C.): Even before the Congress formally declared George W. Bush the winner of last November's presidential election, reports began circulating that he would propose a defense budget for next year that one might have expected instead from the loser, Senator John Kerry.

Actually, a President-elect Kerry probably would not have dared to suggest the far-reaching cuts Mr. Bush plans to make. In any event, he surely would have had a hard time getting them enacted, given pervasive concerns about his judgment on national security matters.

What is at Stake

Yet, here we have the spectacle of $55 billion in far-reaching defense reductions being made by the man who beat Sen. Kerry - largely on the basis of precisely those concerns. It is no exaggeration to say that Mr. Bush will be sworn in again on January 20th because he was widely perceived to be a more credible and robust leader than his challenger when it came to protecting this country.

As Donald Rumsfeld has observed, to considerable tut-tutting from the chattering classes, "You go to war with the army you have." If President Bush does not reverse course, he will be condemning the U.S. military - perhaps on his watch, perhaps on those of his successors - to going to war with vastly inferior capabilities than they could have, should have and will need.

Worse yet, history teaches that such conditions not only leave us less prepared to fight and win. They tend to invite aggression that translates into conflicts that might otherwise have been avoided.

Ronald Reagan, who George W. Bush clearly admires and tries to emulate, offered an alternative approach. He called it "peace through strength." And the military build-up that flowed from Reagan's philosophy and leadership continues to this day to provide the backbone of America's capacity to project power around the world. The fruits of his investment in modern weapon systems and the troops trained to employ them proved indispensable to success in the Cold War. They have also served us well to this point in today's global conflict against terrorists and their state-sponsors.

Say It Ain't So, W.

If President Bush makes the mistake - political, as well as strategic - of emulating defense-cutting Kerry Democrats, there will be adverse impacts especially for the services most critical to rapid power projection: the Navy-Marine Corps team and the Air Force. (The swift and effective response of naval and amphibious units and Air Force airlift to far-flung Asian communities' disaster relief requirements following last month's tsunami underscores the point.) Unfortunately, these units stand to be reduced to the condition of the U.S. Army - too small, inadequately armed and insufficiently flexible to meet various challenges - for which the Administration has lately been sharply criticized.

After all, in order to protect funding for combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon is applying the cuts the Office of Management and Budget has directed it to make to key R&D and procurement accounts. For example:

The Air Force will lose perhaps as many as 110 of the 270 of the F/A-22 fighter/attack aircraft it has intended to buy. These "Raptors" would permit the replacement of thirty-year-old F-15s with stealthy planes capable of providing assured air superiority and support for ground forces, even against enemies with advanced anti-aircraft defenses.

According to press reports, the Marines would be obliged to cut some $1.5 billion from their budget for the revolutionary V-22 "Osprey" tiltrotor aircraft. This would involve delaying or reducing procurement of the mainstay of the Corps' future combat capabilities, with potentially profound repercussions.

The Navy will lose one of its twelve aircraft carriers, while its shipbuilding program will be kept at a level that will reduce the service to fewer than 270 ships - a number clearly inadequate to meet the Nation's worldwide missions. Particularly worrisome are the severe cuts envisioned in the needed modernization of the submarine fleet - arguably the most valuable and certainly among the most flexible of sea-going platforms, given their important roles in sea control and intelligence operations.

Nowhere is it more likely that John Kerry would have cut back Pentagon spending than in the portfolio of the Missile Defense Agency. Yet, here too, President Bush is said to be considering $5 billion in reductions over the next five years. If implemented, these could: essentially eliminate the most promising means of performing boost-phase missile intercepts (namely, using an airborne laser and/or from space); preclude building out the initial, very modest deployment of ground-based interceptors; and sharply curtail sea-based anti-missile defenses. So much for the robust, layered missile defense Mr. Bush has promised to put in place.

The Bottom Line

If the proposed defense budget cuts go forward, the American people would be entitled to feel they have been subjected to a classic "bait and switch." They rejected the candidate whose record had been one of voting against every major weapon system. They accepted the Bush-Cheney team's criticism of John Kerry that he could not be trusted to keep us safe. Now, the guys they elected seem poised to hollow-out the military in ways that will make the recent tempest over the lack of "up-armored" Humvees in Iraq pale by comparison.

The public understands the need for, and is prepared to make, sacrifices in time of war. President Bush must ask them to do so - and avoid unduly increasing those already being asked of the U.S. military.

Center for Security Policy 1920 L Street,N.W. Suite 210 Washington, DC 20036 E-mail the Center

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