July 15, 2005 :: Analysis
The Committee on the Present Danger has released an important and very fine policy statement on ballistic missile defense: Missile Defense for the 21st Century.
Despite the withdrawal from the ABM Treaty and some important preliminary steps by the Bush administration, “some of the most effective defense concepts, precluded by the ABM Treaty precisely because they offered the greatest promise as effective defenses, have not yet been emphasized in the on-going missile defense development activities. In particular, deploying mobile defensive systems and components offers benefits over proliferating fixed ground-based defenses. In particular, those as sea and in space can provide substantial improvements in effectiveness at lower cost and with reduced demands for overseas basing rights. Serious programs to develop and test the key technology to build such systems are required if the future defenses are to meet 21st century challenges, which include a proliferating and growing threat of ballistic missiles that can attack U.S. cities with weapons of mass destruction.”
The report also emphasizes that sea-based interceptors, including those already or shortly available, would do well to meet the threat of a ship-launched missile. The report clearly notes, however, that “Space-based defenses are the optimum layered defense. Basing in space would maximize the ability of the defense to observe the developing threat and minimize the proximity between the defense and target to achieve an effective interception in all three phases of the attacking missile’s trajectory.
The Committee’s report has three specific recommendations, namely to 1) empower the Navy to build and deploy more sea-based defenses, 2) initiate and fully fund a new program to test and deploy space-based defenses, and 3) educate the public, Congress, and our friends and allies to the threat and the potentiality of current technology to provide an effective global defense.
The report lists as its lead author Henry Cooper, former director of the Strategic Defense Initiative and former ambassador and chief negotiator at Geneva defense and space talks with the Soviet Union. Robert Pfaltzgraff, William Van Cleave, and Lowell Wood are listed as reviewers and contributors. (Article)
» July 15, 2005: CPD Press Releases on missile defense policy statement
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