March 22, 2004 :: News
At a March 22 missile defense conference held by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, General Ronald Kadish, head of the Missile Defense Agency, told the gathering the U.S. would not yet be pursuing space-based missile defenses, because we do not yet need them, based on the “threats we face at this particular time in the evolution of the missile defense systems.” Kadish however added that this “situation may or may not last a long time.”
Kadish prudently left the door open for space-based interceptors, by citing the need for an evolving layered defense. But the fact is that the need for space-based interceptors exists now.
The land-based systems is Alaska are well designed to provide a foundation for a defense against a very few long-range missiles launched from a country such as Iran or North Korea. But there are at least two sorts of attacks the interceptors to be deployed in Alaska this year will not defend against: large strategic attacks from Russia or China, or small attacks from off our coast, in the form of a short-range missile fired from a ship against a U.S. city. In the former case, the number of interceptors is dwarfed by our enemies’ strategic arsenals, and in the latter, the flight time of the missile is simply too short and too brief for a land-based interceptor at any but the closest distance to have time to intercept it. Space-based lasers, by contrast, could have an almost instantaneous reaction time, and destroy even the short range missile during its most vulnerable ascent, or boost-phase.
As Republican Senator Wayne Allard of Colorado noted at the same meeting, space-based missile defense systems are cost-effective and “will add considerably to our defense posture.” No reliable defense against short-range ship-launched missiles, or long-range strategic attacks with a number of missiles, can do without space. Space will be, as Donald Rumsfeld has said, space is “essential to the future of modern warfare.” Without space, missile defenses are unlikely to provide for the truly strategic defense of the United States.
» Dec. 10, 2003: Rumsfeld: BMD is “America’s highest priority”
» More stories on: Policy, Space-Based Systems
