Hackett on North Korea, Missile Defense
October 11, 2006 :: Washington Times :: Analysis
The Bush administration is handling North Korea’s nuclear brinksmanship “just right,” argues James Hackett in The Washington Times. It has reacted without histrionics, demanded action by the world community, applied a widening circle of economic sanctions, worked with allies to present a united front, and strengthened missiles defenses. Hackett notes that the North Korean test demonstrates “the folly of those who want to delay deployment of [missile] defenses while conducting interminable flight tests.” He argues that the Bush administration should accelerate deployment of additional ground-based interceptors in Alaska and California, Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) interceptors in Japan and South Korea, and ship-based interceptors on U.S. and Japanese Aegis destroyers in the Pacific and Sea of Japan. “The combination of a united front against Pyongyang and the strengthening of missile defenses around the Pacific can keep North Korea isolated while the united front increases sanctions to push the regime toward collapse,” Hackett writes. “It is important to stay the course and ignore those who call for direct negotiations and other concessions.” (Article, Link)
» More stories on: South Korea, Nuclear Weapons, North Korea, Japan, Analysis
» Missile system details for: Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD), Aegis Ship-Based BMD
Sieff: New Japanese Prime Minister an “Enormous Boost” to U.S Missile Defense
October 6, 2006 :: UPI :: Analysis
Shinzo Abe’s smooth accession as prime minister of Japan will give an enormous boost to the U.S. missile defense program, writes Martin Sieff in the UPI. He notes that “Abe, the handpicked successor of outgoing Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, has made very clear he intends not only to stick with his predecessor’s groundbreaking programs on ballistic missile defense cooperation with the United States but even to accelerate them.” The new prime minister has inherited a large treasury and a robust domestic economy, meaning that “the flood of Japanese high-tech orders, especially for co-production of the Patriot, will continue as Koizumi and President George W. Bush anticipated.” In addition, Abe has made it clear that any diplomatic outreach toward Beijing, or anywhere else, “will not come at the expense of crash co-development of a broad range of BMD systems.” For these reasons, Japan will remain America’s most important global ally in the development of missile defense. (Article, Link)
» More stories on: Japan, Analysis, Allies
» Missile system details for: Japanese Ballistic Missile Defense
Feulner on U.S.-Japanese “Special Relationship”
October 3, 2006 :: The Heritage Foundation :: Analysis
Ed Feulner, president of the Heritage Foundation, argues persuasively that the U.S. must establish a “special relationship” with Japan, as it has with Britain. The U.S. and Japan share similar goals vis-à-vis Asia, including the peaceful reunification of the Korean peninsula, maintaining stability in the Taiwan Strait, and ensuring the security of global energy supplies. In addition, Japan sits on the front lines of virtually any future showdown in Asia. “Take North Korea’s recent missile launches,” writes Feulner. “If those missiles worked, they could potentially reach American shores. But Japan knows North Korea could attack it at any time. And while Japan knows it can count on U.S. support, having its own skilled military could help deter North Korean aggression.” Japan also could serve as a check on China, which is rising economically and militarily. “Together, Tokyo and Washington can help China integrate into the world as a responsible stakeholder in the existing international system and eventually even move toward a democratic system of government,” suggests Feulner.
Regarding ballistic missile defense, the “special relationship” between the U.S. and Japan is already well underway. In December 2004, the two nations signed an agreement allowing for extensive missile defense cooperation, including the mutual transfer of related technologies. In December 2005, Japan announced that it would pay one third to one half of the cost of the joint missile defense shield, $1-1.5 billion of the estimated $3 billion total cost. Shortly thereafter, U.S. State Department released an official statement that Japan had become the U.S.’s most significant missile defense partner. Japan is currently working with the U.S. to develop and deploy the Aegis sea-based missile defense system, which features Standard Missile-3 interceptor missiles deployed on Aegis-equipped cruisers and destroyers; as well as Patriot Advanced Capability-3 interceptors; and tracking sensors. (Article, Link)
» More stories on: Japan, Analysis, Allies
» Missile system details for: Japanese Ballistic Missile Defense
Carafano: U.S. Should Help Israel Deploy Directed-Energy Defenses
September 23, 2006 :: The Heritage Foundation :: Analysis
The U.S. should help Israel deploy anti-rocket defense using available, proven, directed-energy technologies in less than two years, argues James Jay Carafano of the Heritage Foundation. He notes that the two nations have already jointly developed a short-range laser system, the Mobile Tactical High Energy Laser (MTHEL), but chose not to deploy it. Instead, the Pentagon decided to invest its resources in more advanced directed-energy research that would lead to more mobile systems that could be quickly shifted around the battlefield. Yet prototypes for these new systems will not be available until at least 2013, during which Hezbollah could rearm and instigate another war a half-dozen times. “Congress has an opportunity to jump-start the process by including the necessary funding in the annual defense appropriations bill, but so far, it has let the opportunity pass,” writes Carafano. “The Pentagon doesn’t want the proven directed-energy defenses—an attitude that clearly proves the old adage that the perfect is the enemy of the good. Waiting for futuristic technology won’t help deter war in the Middle East, but deploying a directed-energy defense now will take the threat of rocket wars off the table.” In addition to defending all of Israel’s borders, these systems could be used by the U.S. to defend against short-range missile attacks on commercial aircraft or protect critical infrastructure like nuclear power plants. (Article, Link)
» More stories on: Allies, Analysis, High Energy Defenses, Israel, Terrorism
» Missile system details for: Tactical High Energy Laser (THEL)
Spring on Missile Defense Debate
September 20, 2006 :: The Heritage Foundation :: Analysis
The current lack of an effective missile defense is the product of a political process that makes it exceedingly difficult to reverse deeply entrenched policies, argues Baker Spring of the Heritage Foundation. For roughly 30 years, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty restricted missile defense research and development to inadequate options such as ground-based defenses deployed at fixed locations. The result was that the missile defense bureaucracy eventually became professionally defined within these narrow boundaries, and individuals currently working on these programs are reluctant to permit open competition between their programs and effective alternatives such as sea- and space-based assets now permitted by U.S. withdrawal from the ABM Treaty.
In addition, missile defense has fallen victim to what Spring terms “public choice theory.” Time and again, the American public has expressed strong support for missile defense. Yet when the question turns to which kind of missile defense system should be deployed, a vocal minority of hardened opponents prevails in its opposition to new technologies that would more effective, such as sea- and space-based interceptors. Political leaders move to embrace compromises that seek to satisfy both sides, favoring an outcome that “embraces strong statements of principle in favor of missile defense in deference to the majority and simultaneously marginalizes the most effective option for missile defense in deference to the vocal minority.”
Opponents are thus able to denounce the entire missile defense enterprise in the context of the limited system currently being deployed. Spring argues that missile defense proponents in Congress must extend their support to new and more effective technologies. “True support for missile defense must be tied to commitments to back the best possible missile defense system at an affordable price,” he writes. (Article, Link)
» More stories on: Analysis, Policy
Allard on Missile Defense
September 11, 2006 :: News
Senator Wayne Allard (R-CO), former chairman of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the Senate Arms Services Committee which oversees ballistic missile defense, spoke on the Senate floor about the recent successes of the Missile Defense Agency on Friday, September 8. Senator Allard made note of several successful intercepts in recent months, including the September 1 test of the ground-based interceptor launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, which destroyed an incoming missile, as well as recent tests of the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3), Terminal High-Altitude Air Defense (THAAD), and the sea-based Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System. Senator Allard praised MDA for learning from past setbacks, and argued that the U.S. missile defense system should be challenged even further. “We need more testing so that we can better understand the task at hand and discover the areas that must be improved,” he said. “I do not expect perfection. In fact, I expect some failures. But, in the context of several missile defense intercepts tests per year, one or two failures only means that we are pushing to find out the real capabilities of the system.” (Article, Link)
» More stories on: Analysis, Policy
» Missile system details for: Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD)
Baluyevsky: U.S. Missile Defense Could Spark Arms Race
September 7, 2006 :: AFP :: Analysis
General Yuri Baluyevsky, Russia’s Chief of Staff and First Deputy Defense Minister, has delivered another op-ed column, this time in the Polish daily Dziennik on September 6. Baluyevsky wrote, “Deploying the large-scale U.S. anti-missile shield threatens to spark a new arms race,” adding that Washington’s intention to base some of the anti-missile shield in central Europe was of particular concern. “We are firmly convinced that, if the U.S. project is carried out, it could lead to the deployment near the Russian border of systems which threaten to upset the strategic balance in weapons positioning,” Baluyevsky noted.
Baluyevsky’s previous article in the Voyenno-Promyshlenny Kurier on July 26 criticized the U.S. defensive posture in a similar fashion, claiming that “the world is essentially back to square one—that latter being the situation of America’s nuclear monopoly of the 1940s.” (Article, Link)
» More stories on: Analysis, Nuclear Weapons, Russia
Cooper and Pfaltzgraff on Need for Global, Multi-layered Missile Defense
August 30, 2006 :: The Wall Street Journal :: Analysis
Deployment of a multi-layered missile defense, including space-based systems, should be an urgent U.S. priority, argues Ambassador Henry F. Cooper and Dr. Robert Pfaltzgraff, in the August 28 edition of The Wall Street Journal. Dr. Pfaltzgraff is president of the Institute of Foreign Policy Analysis (IFPA) and Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of International Security Studies at Tufts University. Ambassador Cooper was the former director of the Strategic Defense Initiative and chief U.S. negotiator to the Geneva Space and Defense Talks, and is currently chairman of High Frontier, a missile defense advocacy group. Both participated in the Independent Working Group, which recently released the report Missile Defense, the Space Relationship and the 21st Century.
The authors write: “We should make it virtually impossible for any adversary—rogue states, non-state actors and larger strategic competitors—to influence U.S. decisions, or the course of regional conflicts, by threatening to launch missiles with nuclear weapons against the U.S., its deployed forces or its allies.” The U.S. needs a “continuously ready, global, multilayered system to provide multiple shots at attacking missiles and their warheads in all their phases of flight.” Such defenses would make a missile attack against the U.S. an expensive endeavor, and therefore less attractive for enemies to buy the technologies to overcome them. “The ABM Treaty era showed that it is the absence of defenses, rather than their presence, that encourages the development of offensive technologies.” To accomplish this, the U.S. should complete the ground-based sites in Alaska and California but build no additional ground-based sites. Limited resources would be better spent deploying more effective sea- and space-based missile defense components.
The U.S. has already invested $80 billion in over 80 Aegis-equipped warships armed with Standard Missile-3 interceptors, which provide an effective defense against cruise missiles. An additional investment of $100 million per ship, they write, would enable these flexible platforms to shoot down ballistic missiles, and thus provide an effective near-term defense capability. For a long-term global defense, the U.S. should invest in space-based systems that can intercept ballistic missiles in all phases of flight. The technology already exists in the form of Brilliant Pebbles, a space-based system developed during the Reagan and first Bush administrations but never completed. Brilliant Pebbles consists of a constellation of lightweight satellites that would release watermelon-sized interceptors into the path of the oncoming missiles and destroy them by impact. Cooper and Pfaltzgraff point out that all key technologies for Brilliant Pebbles were proven by the mid-1990s, and that the more advanced technology of today would provide such a system with even greater capabilities.
The full text: (More »»»)
» Read the 2007 report: The Independent Working Group on Missile Defense, the Space Relationship, and the Twenty-First Century (8 MB)
» More stories on: Analysis, Policy
» Missile system details for: Aegis Ship-Based BMD, Brilliant Pebbles
Karako Participates in FrontPage Missile Defense Dialogue
August 30, 2006 :: FrontPage Magazine :: Analysis
Thomas Karako, director of programs at the Claremont Instiute and editor of Missilethreat.com, recently took part in an online dialogue on missile defense organized by FrontPage Magazine. Karako was joined by Ilan Berman, vice president for policy of the Washington-based American Foreign Policy Council, Jed Babbin, the former deputy undersecretary of defense in the first Bush administration, and Austin Bay, an author and syndicated newspaper columnist. The dialogue concentrated on the current ballistic missile threats facing the U.S., and how to most effectively combat them. (Article, Link)
» More stories on: Analysis, Policy
Bay on Missile Defense
August 29, 2006 :: Washington Times :: Analysis
A more robust missile defense system will blunt the effects of North Korean and Iranian “fear us” campaigns, writes Austin Bay in The Washington Times. He explains how the rise of rogue states and terrorist organizations, combined with the proliferation of ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction, has effectively nullified the Cold War-era doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), although MAD remains a driving force in Washington. Bay offers Hezbollah’s rocket attacks on northern Israel as a chilling example of how a non-state actor can willingly sacrifice its own people and neighborhoods in the pursuit of its goals. In the absence of a robust and credible missile defense, he writes, the U.S. will grow increasingly vulnerable to ballistic and cruise missile attack from these entities. The U.S. will likewise grow increasingly vulnerable to “fear us” campaigns and other forms of political manipulation by these rogue states and terrorist organizations, who are quickly learning that U.S. strategic culture remains tied to a defunct doctrine that assumes rationality on all sides. (Article, Link)
» More stories on: Analysis
