May 8, 2006 :: The Weekly Standard :: Analysis
“It’s not perfect, not yet, but we are closing in on a reliable defense to ballistic missile attack,” writes James Thayer in The Weekly Standard. While national attention is focused on the nuclear threat from Iran, MDA continues to develop and deploy systems that will knock out enemy warheads. The Pentagon is currently deploying ground-based midcourse interceptors in Alaska and California, Standard Missile-3 interceptors on Aegis-equipped warships, and a host of radars and sensors to detect and track incoming threats. It is also developing the Airborne Laser, the Theater High Altitude Area Defense, the Medium Extended Air Defense System, and other such systems. The end result is that the U.S. will soon have an integrated system of air, land, sea, and space-based missile defense assets. In addition, the Pentagon has secured critical BMD partners such as Japan, Australia, Great Britain, Israel, Germany, Italy, and possibly Canada, India, and Poland, ensuring that its initiatives have lasting international support.
Thayer notes, however, that domestic opposition to ballistic missile defense remains strong. The “scoffing” that began in the early 1980s, when Ronald Reagan announced the Strategic Defense Initiative, continues to this day unabated. MDA’s initiatives are routinely questioned, ridiculed, and condemned in the editorial pages of major U.S. newspapers and magazines. Self-proclaimed “watchdog” organizations such as the Union of Concerned Scientists frequently claim that there is “no basis for believing the system will have any capability to defend against real attack.” Even prominent individuals have jumped on the anti-BMD bandwagon, such as Eugene Habiger, former head of U.S. Strategic Command, who recently announced, “A system is being deployed that doesn’t have any credible capability.” If one were to pay attention to the rhetoric, it would appear as if missile defense is on its death bed.
Yet the evidence is clear that U.S. BMD is making progress, and is well on its way to becoming a reality. Soon, the U.S. will have a credible, reliable defense against ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads deployed by rogue nations such as Iran and North Korea, or even transnational terrorist organizations emanating from the Middle East and elsewhere. In the post-Cold War era, when such entities are not restrained by abstract, academic balance-of-power theories, such as Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), missile defense has become justifiable and inevitable. In response to those who oppose the creation of a national missile defense, Thayer writes, “Star Wars is here, now.” Assets are already in place; more will come, provided the political will is present. (Article)
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