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Friday, the Navy successfully tested its Navy Theater Wide interceptor
by shooting down an Aries rocket fired from the island of Kauai.
An Aegis Cruiser, the U.S.S. Lake Erie, acquired and tracked
the target rocket from its location off the coast of Hawaii, computed
an intercept solution, and launched its test interceptor —
which destroyed the target by directly hitting it above the Earth's
atmosphere.
This successful
test is a major step forward for the Navy's efforts to improve its
existing Aegis-based air-defense system to protect our overseas
troops, friends, and allies against ballistic missile attack. Furthermore,
President Bush has announced that the U.S. will withdraw from the
ABM Treaty on June 13, 2002; so this sea-based system also can be
made capable of defending the American homeland — for a relatively
small investment and in the relatively near future.
But it is not
yet clear that the Bush Pentagon will rapidly press ahead with this
important program (which could exploit the existing Aegis fleet,
already operating around the world) — so strong is the pent-up
institutional resistance to sea-based defenses.
We have known
for years that, for a small percentage of the $60 billion the U.S.
taxpayer has invested in the Aegis system, we can rapidly begin
operating a sea-based defense and improving it with block changes
as new technology is tested and proven. I began such a program while
serving as director of the Strategic Defense Initiative under the
first President Bush — with then-defense secretary Dick Cheney's
blessing, the Pentagon was fully budgeted to build and begin operations
of such a capability years ago.
The Clinton
administration scuttled that program — no doubt because of
the higher priority they gave to the ABM Treaty than to building
effective defenses. And they "dumbed down" the anemically
funded sea-based defense programs they did reluctantly continue
— under persistent pressure from Congress. The Clinton administration
resisted spending the money Congress added year after year; instead,
they conducted study after study of the merits of sea-based defenses.
Every study
— over a dozen, by inside and outside experts — was positive.
But the Clinton administration delayed and dissembled — and
refused to provide even congressionally mandated study results to
the Congress.
There was great
hope this would all change with the arrival of President George
W. Bush with his oft-stated commitment to missile defenses —
and to moving beyond the ABM Treaty, which bans even testing effective
sea-based defenses. But, so far, his administration has done little
more than continue to study the possibilities, rather than moving
out smartly with a serious development program to build a sea-based
defense capability soon.
Indeed, the
Pentagon took backward steps on December 14 by canceling, two-thirds
of the way through development and on the eve of intensive testing
in February, the Navy Area Missile Defense program, in which the
taxpayers had invested over $2 billion. In overruling the chairman
of the Joint Chiefs, who had formally echoed the views of the chief
of Naval Operations and commandant of the Marines in strongly endorsing
this program, Pentagon officials pointed to cost growth and schedule
delays as justifying cancellation of the Navy's top-priority missile
defense program.
Such problems
are not to be taken lightly, of course — but they are hardly
unusual for successful Pentagon acquisition programs, and Pentagon
authorities were very unwise to kill this program at a cost of several
hundred million dollars of termination fees — perhaps more
than the costs of the tests to see if the system would perform as
designed.
Guess what?
After killing Navy Area, the Pentagon is "studying" how
to reorganize the development of sea-based defenses — to meet
long-established requirements for such defenses, including of our
coastal sea and airports of entry, providing "assured access
to troubled regions allowing a smooth flow of follow-on troops and
air forces," as JCS Chairman Air Force General Richard B. Meyers
has articulated. What's wrong with all the past studies?
According to
press accounts last summer, past Navy studies concluded that relatively
inexpensive options can be exercised in a staged way to begin defending
the United States homeland within a year:
In 12 months and for a few hundred million dollars, the Aegis system's
existing air-defense missile can be made much more effective; an
added boost-phase-intercept capability would make it possible to
shoot down North Korean missiles as they rise from their launch
pads. This capability could — in concert with existing coastal
radar systems and Coast Guard operations — help protect metropolitan
areas from short-range SCUDs that might be launched from tramp steamers
off our coasts — e.g., near Boston, Annapolis, Norfolk, etc.
In the context of September 11, this is an appropriate homeland
security concern.
A second stage of sea-based defense could begin protecting American
cities within two to three years, for about $2 billion more than
already programmed for the Navy Theater Wide program (which conducted
last Friday's test). Aegis cruisers operating normally around the
world could be given the capability to destroy attacking missiles
in their boost- and mid-course phases, and so protect a large portion
of the United States — as well as our overseas troops, friends,
and allies.
These near-term sea-based defenses could later be substantially
improved, still for costs on the order of $10 billion.
Pentagon authorities
should conclude their studies of sea-based defenses and begin building
real capability — soon.
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