DEFENDING AMERICA
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The danger to the American people from ballistic missiles armed with nuclear, chemical, or biological warheads continues to grow as these deadly weapons proliferate around the world. Nevertheless, the United States continues to delay the deployment of anti-ballistic missile protection, even though such systems are well within its technological grasp. As this report demonstrates, an affordable and effective missile defense system could become operational within four years and cost less than $8 billion (or only about 1.5 percent of the annual defense budget).
In July 1998, the bipartisan Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States, chaired by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, released its unanimous findings after an exhaustive review of all pertinent intelligence. The Rumsfeld Commission found, among other things, that a potentially hostile state could acquire a ballistic missile capability "with little or no warning." The Rumsfeld Commission concluded that:
In addition to ballistic missile threats posed by Russia and the People's Republic of China, such states as Iran, Iraq, and North Korea "would be able to inflict major damage on the U.S. within about five years of a decision to acquire such a capability"; and
"During several of those years the U.S. might not be aware that such a decisions had been made."
Underscoring the sober warning of the Rumsfeld Commission was Iran's test of an intermediate-range ballistic missile, the Shahab-3, only a week after the Rumsfeld Commission released its report. Then, in late August, North Korea fired a three-stage missile, the Taepo Dong-1, over Japan and thereby proved its ability to reach targets of intercontinental range.
In January 1999, Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen acknowledged that "there is a threat, and the threat is growing, and we expect it will soon pose a danger not only to our troops overseas but also to Americans here at home." This urgent and growing missile threat demands an urgent response. The recommendations of The Heritage Foundation's Missile Defense Study Teams in 1995 and 1996 are confirmed again by The Heritage Foundation's Commission on Missile Defense in 1999. In short, the United States should deploy a global defense against ballistic missile attack as soon as possible. A global system, on continuous alert and with forward-based interceptors, can destroy enemy missiles early in their trajectory and thus provide the largest area of protection.
Specifically, The Heritage Foundation's Commission on Missile Defense finds that:
The most expeditious, least expensive way to provide an effective defense against ballistic missile attack is to deploy sea-based defenses first, followed by space-based defenses. This concept--"first from the sea, then from space"--is more timely and valid than ever before in the face of the growing threat of attack on Americans.
No effective defense of the entire United States can be built consistent with the ABM Treaty. Attempts to assure theater defenses are compliant with the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty have frustrated the development of relatively inexpensive, wide-area defense systems to defend the United States and its overseas troops, friends, and allies.
The constraints preventing effective defenses are self-imposed because the ABM Treaty no longer is in force as a matter of constitutional and international law. The Clinton Administration's adherence to the ABM Treaty is imprudent and unnecessary.
Restricting national missile defense for the American homeland to ground-based sites requires the most expensive programs that would take too many years to complete. The Clinton Administration's National Missile Defense program would cost much more and take much longer than its proponents claim, even including the Administration's recently highly touted proposal to increase spending for ballistic missile defense by $6.6 billion over the next six years. This proposal adds two years to the Administration's prior projections, changing its so-called 3+3 program into a "3+5" program. The first ground-based site, as various independent cost estimates during the Bush Administration forecast, would be likely to cost about $25 billion and take eight to nine years to build. (Estimates of the U.S. General Accounting Office in 1998 were consistent with these forecasted costs.)
Defending the entire United States with ground-based defenses would require multiple sites. An effective defense against more than a few missiles will be impossible if the United States continues to observe the ABM Treaty. Moreover, such a multi-site system could cost an additional $25 billion and take another five to seven years to complete, depending on how many sites were to be built.
Therefore, to achieve the most effective, most affordable global anti-missile protection in the shortest time, The Heritage Foundation Commission on Missile Defense makes the following recommendations:
Recommendation # 1. Stop constraining the Navy Theater Wide missile defense system. By deploying a missile defense "first from the sea," the United States could achieve immense cost savings and have effective protection against ballistic missiles fairly quickly. The U.S. taxpayer has invested $50 billion in the U.S. Navy's Aegis system already; for about 5 percent more ($2.5 billion to $3 billion), in three to four years the Navy could deploy 650 fast, capable missile interceptors on 22 Aegis cruisers already patrolling the oceans and seas, covering almost 70 percent of the earth's surface. By linking, or "internetting," space-based and other sensors with its command-and-control system, the Navy Theater Wide (NTW) defense system could provide an effective global defense against most long-range ballistic missiles. Such a defense could be operational far more quickly than the Clinton Administration's planned ground-based system--and at far lower cost, if the ABM Treaty were not allowed to continue to constrain scientists and engineers. For this reason, the Heritage Commission urges the Administration to abandon the ABM Treaty as soon as possible and build global defenses, beginning with the NTW system.
Recommendation #2. Build a space-based sensor system as a companion to the Navy's missile defense system. The NTW system and the Space-Based Infra-Red Sensor system employing low-altitude satellites (SBIRS-Low) should be built as companion systems as soon as possible. Space-based sensors would be needed to provide target detection and tracking data directly to the ship-borne interceptors. These data would allow the NTW system to maximize its potential to protect the widest possible area. Such an integrated system--which ABM Treaty limits preclude today--of ship-based defenses and space-based sensors could defend Americans at home and abroad, as well as U.S. friends and allies, against missiles launched from most likely trouble spots.
Recommendation #3. Expedite the sea-based system and space-based sensor systems with streamlined management modeled after the successful Polaris program. If anti-missile protection were made a top national priority and enabled with streamlined management and full funding, the first bloc of an effective NTW system should cost less than $3 billion and could begin operation as early as 2003. The space-based sensor system should cost less than $5 billion and could begin operations as early as 2003. A streamlined management structure would eliminate many of today's inefficient acquisition procedures in the Department of the Navy and the Office of the Secretary of Defense and accelerate the deployment of the NTW and SBIRS-Low systems in the race to defend the United States against the growing missile threat. A streamlined and competent acquisition team could repeat the "rush to success" of the Minuteman/Polaris programs instead of a "rush to failure" that is associated with the less-disciplined engineering and management approach of the Clinton Administration.
Recommendation #4. Revive serious research and development activities for near-term boost-phase interceptors. Comprehensive development activities should be undertaken, in the same streamlined management context, to provide a boost-phase intercept capability as soon as possible. The earliest attainable option for achieving such operational capability would be high-acceleration interceptors launched at missiles in the first moments of trajectory from unmanned aerial vehicles. Later options would include space-based interceptors and lasers. If fully funded, space-based interceptors and space-based lasers could begin operations within 5 and 10 years, respectively.
Recommendation #5. End the self-imposed restraints of the now-defunct ABM Treaty. The United States must face the fact that there can be no decisive anti-missile protection for the American homeland or for U.S. troops and allies overseas so long as the ABM Treaty continues to be observed. This treaty no longer is strategically valid (if it ever was) in a multipolar world of proliferating weapons of mass destruction with threats coming from quarters other than the former Soviet Union. Moreover, under relevant international law, the ABM Treaty no longer is legally binding because the only ABM Treaty partner of the United States, the former Soviet Union, is extinct and no proposed successor to the Soviet Union can carry out the treaty as ratified. The United States should declare the ABM Treaty null and void and proceed to build and deploy the best missile defense that technology permits.
Recommendation #6. Engage U.S. allies in building effective global missile defenses. U.S. allies could help the United States to achieve an effective global defense by deploying a network of defensive sensors and interceptors around the world. Although the cooperation of Russia in such a global system-of-systems would be welcome under the proper circumstances, Russia should not be permitted veto power over the near-term development and deployment of the most effective defense of the United States permitted by current technology. Nor should China's attempts to intimidate allies in the Far East be permitted to impede U.S. efforts to provide wide-area regional defenses to protect U.S. interests throughout the Pacific Basin.
CONCLUSION
The Heritage Foundation's Commission on Missile Defense recommends a two-phase program to defend the United States from missile attack. The first phase would be a near-term, sea-based plan to give the United States, its troops, and overseas allies the most effective protection as soon as possible. The second phase would be a more comprehensive and complete system based on the boost-phase capabilities of space-based interceptors and lasers.
Therefore, within four years, and for less than $8 billion, the United States could have an effective and affordable global missile defense system. The total cost would include $2 billion to $3 billion for Navy Theater Wide sea-based interceptors and less than $5 billion for the Space-Based Infra-Red Sensor system employing low-altitude satellites. 1
Such a missile defense program would require the Clinton Administration to (1) end its self-imposed adherence to the ABM Treaty; (2) assign top national priority to missile defense; and (3) institute a streamlined management approach led by a dedicated Navy program office.
To be most effective, this first-phase global missile defense system--based on the NTW system--should be supplemented with space-based interceptors and lasers as those technologies mature. With streamlined management, the United States could begin to deploy space-based interceptors as early as 2004 and space-based lasers in about 10 years.
Thus, for less than $8 billion, the United States could deploy the first layer of a comprehensive global missile defense system to intercept dangerous missiles launched from anywhere in the world. This "first-from-the-sea, then-from-space" approach would create the most effective, complete, and responsible global defense system for the United States.
The only thing standing in the way of this affordable, effective, and responsible system to defend the United States is political will. The Clinton Administration and Congress can end our vulnerability to attack, and they can do it for less than we spend in two years on the air traffic control system. Defending America from missile attack is a responsibility we cannot afford to ignore.
Endnote
1. The $8 billion cost includes research and development, acquisition, and 10 years of operations.
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